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HISTORY 



PIONEER SETTLEMENT 



fliliPS AND fiORHAM'S PURCIIASi 



p ■' 



MORRIS' RESERVE; 

EMBRACING THE COUNTIES OF 

[ONROE, ONTARIO, LIVIIT G ST ON, YATES, STEUBEN, 
MOST OF WAYNE AND ALLEGANY, AND PARTS 
OF ORLEANS, GENESEE AND WYOMING. 



TO WHICH IS ADDED, A SUFPLEMENT, OR EXTENSION OF THE PIONEER HISTORY OF 

MONROE COUNTY. 



THE WHOLE PRECEDED By 



OME ACCOUNT OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH DOMINION — BORDER "WARS OF THE REVOLU- 
TION INDIAN COUNCILS AND LAND CESSIONS THE PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT 

WESTWARD FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK — EARLY DIFFICUL- 
TIES WITH THE INDIANS — OUR IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS THE 
SENECAS — WITH "A GLANCE AT THE IROQUOIS." 



BY 0. TURNER, 

[author of THE "HISTORY OF THE HOLLAND~PUECHASE."] 



ROCHESTER: 

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM ALLING, 

1851. 



-r^ 



Entered according to act of Congi-ess, in the year 1851, by Wm. Alling, in the Clerk's 
Office of the District Court of the Northern Distiict of New York. 



Stereotyped by 
J. w. BROWN, Rochester. 

PJUNTED BY LEE, MANN & CO., 
Rochester, .V. Y. 



SriiirntiDH, 



TO THE 

SURVIYING PI0XEER3 

AND TH3 

DESCENDANTS OP PIONEERS 

OF 

PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE, 

AND 

MORRIS' RESERVE, 

THIS TVOEK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED: — 

To the first, — as a feeble tribute, a moiety of what is their due, for the 
physical and moral triumphs they have won thi'ough long early years of toil, 
privation and endurance. In \'iew of the brief space allotted to man by an 
All Wise Providence, as an average existence — (no more than thii-ty 
fleeting years constituting a generation) — you hve to be the witnesses of 
more than it is often given to man to see. The wilderness you entered in your 
youths — some of you in middle age — you have lived to see not only 
" blossom as the rose," but to bear its matured and ripened fi'uit. Where 
you have followed the trails of yom* immediate predecessors — the Seneca 
Iroquois — or your own woods paths, are Canals, Rail Roads and Telegraphs. 
A long line of internal na\agation — an artificial River — bearing upon its 
bosom the products of your own subdued, teeming soil, and continuous fleets, 
laden with the products of an Empire, that has sprung up around the bor- 
dere of our Western Lakes — winds along through vallies that you have seen 
but the abodes of wild beasts ; from whose depths you have heard in your 
log cabins, the tenific howl of the famishing wolf ! Aqueducts, stnictures 
that tlie architects of the old world might take for models, span the streams you 
have often forded, and over which you have helped to throw primitive log 
bridges. And upon these Lakes, whose commerce you have seen to consist 
of a few batteaux, lazily coasting along near shore, putting into bays and inlets, 
whenever the elements were disturbed — are fleets of sail vessels, and " float- 
ing palaces," propelled by a mighty agent, whose powers were but little 
known when you began to wield the axe in the forests of the Genesee coun- 
try, A subtle agent was occasionally flashing in the dark forests, indicating 
its power by scathing and leveUing its tall trees ; then but partially subdued 
to man's use ; now tamed, harnessed, controlled ; travei-sing those wires, and 
bringing the extremes of this extended Union to hold converse with each 
other with the " rapidity of thought," — more than realizing the boasts of 
the spirit of the poet's imagination, who would 

'• Put a girdle 'round the Earth in thirty minutes !" 



IV DEDICATION. 

; Villages, cities, institutions of religion and learning, are upon sites where 
you have seen the dark shades of the forest rest with a profound stillness, 
that you could hardly have expected to see disturbed by the hand of improve- 
ment. But more than all this, you have lived to see an extended region of 
wilderness converted into fruitful fields ; a landscape every where interspersed 
with comfortable, often luxurious, farm buildings; surrounded by all the evi- 
dences of substantial, unsurpassed prosperity. Who else that have planted 
colonies, founded settlements, have lived to see such consummations ? Peaceful, 
bloodless, and yet glorious I The conquerous upon battle fields have been 
destroyers ; you, creators ; they, have made fields desolate ; you, have clothed 
them with smiling promise and full fruition. They, have brought mourning ; 
you, rejoicing. Theirs, was the physical courage of a day, perhaps of a for- 
tunate hour; yours, was the higher and nobler attribute — the moral courage 
— the spirit of endurance and perseverance, that held out through long years 
of suffering and privation; that looked dangers and difiiculties in the face, 
till they became familiar associates. In the I'etrospect of well-spent lives — 
in view of the consummation of the great work of civilization and improve- 
ment, you have helped to commence and carry on — now that the shades of 
evening are gathering around you — now that you are admonished that your 
work upon earth is done — well may you say: — ^^ Noio Lord lettest thou 
thy servant depart in peaceP 

To the second, — as the inheritors of a rich legacy, the fruits of the 
achievments, of the long yeare of enterprise, toil, fortitude and perseverance, 
of those Pioneer Fathere ; the conservators of their memories. Honors, titles, 
stars and garters, such as kings may bestow, are baubles compared with what 
they have bequeathed ! Far most of them breaking out from their quiet 
New England homes, in youth, and strength, went first to the battle field, 
where it was the strong against the weak, the oppressor against the oppressed, 
and helped to win a glorious national inheritance ; then, after a short respite, 
came to this piimitive region, and won a local inheritance for you, fan- and 
fertile, as rich in all the elements of prosperity and happiness, as any that 
the sun of Heaven shines upon ! Guard the trust in a spirit of gratitude ; 
cherish the memories of the Pioneers ; imitate their stem virtues ; preser\e 
and carry on the work they have so well begun ! 

And both will accept this tribute, from the son of a Pioneer — one " who 
was to the manor bom," — who has essayed to snatch from fading memories, 
gather from imperfect records, and preserve these local Reminiscences ; — and 
who, most of all regrets, that in the execution of the task, he has not been able 
to recognize more of the names and the deeds of the Founders of settle- 
ments IN THE Genesee Countrt. The Author. 



ODE, 

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF WESTERN NEW-TORK. 



[by W. H. C. HOSMER, ESQ.] 



High was the homage Senates paid 
To the plumed Conquerors of old, 

And freely, at their feet were laid, 
Rich piles of flashing gems and gold. 

Proud History exhausted thought. 
Glad bards awoke their vocal reeds ; 

While Phidian hands the marble wi'ought 
In honor of their wondrous deeds : 

But our undaunted Pioneers 
Have conquests more enduring won, 

In scattering the night of years. 
And opening forests to the sun; 

And victors are they nobler far 

Than the helmed chiefs of other times. 

Who rolled theu" chariots of war, 
To foreign lands, and distant climes. 

Earth groaned beneath their mail-clad men, 
Bereft of greenness where they trod, 

And wildly rose, from hill and glen. 
Loud, agonizing shrieks to God. 

Purveyors of the carrion bird 

Blood streamed from their uplifted hands. 
And while the crash of States was heard. 

Passed on their desolating bands. 

Then tell me not of heroes fled — 

Crime, renders foul their boasted fame, 

While widowed ones and orphans bled, 
They earned the phantom of a name. 

The sons of our New England Sires, 
Armed with endurance, dared to roam 

Far from the hospitable fii'es. 

And the bright, hallowed bowers of Home. 

The storm they met with bosoms bared, 
And bloodless triumphs bought by toil ; 

The wild beast from his cavern scared, 
And clothed in bloom the virgin soil. 



vi ODE. 



Distemper leagued with famines wan, 
Nerved to a high resolve, they bore ; 

And flocks, upon the thymy lawn, 

Ranged where the panther yelled before. 

Look now abroad ! the scene how changed^ 

Where fifty fleeting years ago 
Clad in their 8<avage costume ranged. 

The belted lords of shaft and bow. 

In praise of pomp let fawning Art 
Can'e rocks to triumph over years, 

The grateful incense of the heart 
Give to our living Pioneers. 

Almighty ! may thine out-stretched arm 
Guard through long ages, yet to be. 

From tread of slave, and kingly harm, 
Our Eden of the Genesee. 



ERRATA. 

Page 131 — arts of peace, instead of " acts." 

Page 151 — read sister instead of " daughter of Zachariah Seymour." 
Page 174 — in note — Judge Taylor, should be in place of "Judge Wells. " 
Two references which belong to page 325 are caitied over to page 326. 
Page 483 — Shay's RebelUon — " General order" — date should have been 1786. 
Page 314 — 8th line, " after," should precede "his appointment." 
Page 416 — 9tli line $200 instead of $2,00." 

Page 597 — 15th line, receipts of Rochester P. 0., should be as in a few lines above, 
$3,46, instead of "$346." 



PREFACE. 



A WORK, commenced Dearly one year since, the publication of -which has been 
delayed far beyond the promised period, owing to causes unforseen — principally to 
the fact that it is of greater magnitude, and has involved a far greater amount of travel, 
labor and research than was anticipated — is now presented to the public. 

The general plan of it will hardly be misunderstood by its readers : — It is a his- 
tory of the Pioneer, or first settlement, of that poition of the Genesee Countiy em- 
braced in the purchase of Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham of the State of Mas- 
sachusetts! and the Seneca Indians, and of that portion purchased by Robert Morn?, 
which he reserved in his sale to the Holland Company. The boundaries of the region 
embraced ai'e indicated in the title page, and are more cle&rly defined in the body of 
the work. It is the eastern,' and nearly the one half of what constitutes, properly, 
Western New York ; its eastern boundary being the Massachusetts Une of pre-emption. 
The work commences with the advent of the French upon the St. Lawrence, and 
traces their progi'ess to this region, and along the shores of the Western Lakes to the 
Mississippi ; briefly recognizing the prominent events that followed under English 
and French domimon. 

Enough of colonial histoiy has been embraced — that which tended in the direction 
of our local region — to make such an induction to the main design^of the work, as 
would secure an unbroken chain, or chronology of events, commencing with the 
landing of the French upon the St. Lawrence, and continued through the period of 
French and English occupancy. As all this was but incidental, it has been, generally, 
briefly disposed of, for the author was admonished that his space would be required 
when he had entered upon a less beaten track. Yet he may ventia-e to anticipate that 
even the student of history, will find something of interest in this precedent portion 
of the Avork ; for it is not wholly an explored field, and each new gleaner may bring 
something from it to add to the common stock of liistorical knowledge. 

It was the original design of the author to incorporate in the work, something of 
the history of our immediate predecessors, the Senecas. It was mainly abandoned 
however, on learning that a local author, quite competent for the task, (as his now 
published work bears witness,) was preparing for the press, a work which would em- 
orace much of interest in their history.* Mucli of them, however, will be found 
scattered throughout a large portion of the work, and a separate chapter is appropriated 
to them, from the pen of a native, and resident of the Genesee Valley — a scholar and 
a poet, whose fame has gone out far beyond our local region, and confeiTcd credit upon 
its hterature.t 5;;^" See chapter II, Part I. 

The colonial period passed, — the local events of the Revolution briefly disposed 
of; — Indian treaties, commencing under the administration of George Clinton — 
the almost interminable difliculties in whicli the State, and indiviilual purchasers 
were involved in with the Lessees, — the slow advance of settlement in this direc- 
tion — are subjects next in order. Much of all this has been drawn fi'om authentic 
records, and did not previously exist in any connected printed record. 

The main subject reached — settlement of the Genesee country commenced — a 
general plan of narrative, somewhat novel in its character was adopted : — History 
and brief personal Biography, have been in a great measure blended. This has vastly 
increased the labor of the work, but it is lioped it will be found to have added to its 
interest. It will readily be inferred that it involved the necessity of selecting the 
most prominent of the Pioneers in each locality — those with whom could be blended 
most of the Pioneer events. In almost every locahty there has been regi'ctted omis- 
sions ; a failure to recognize all who should have been noticed. This has been partly 
the result of necessity, but oftener the neglect of those who had promised to furnish 
the required information. While the work contains more of names and sketches of 
personal history, tliau are to be found in any other local annals that have been pub- 
lished in our country, there are hundreds of Pioneer names reluctantly omitted. 

* " League of the Iroquois," by Lewis H. Morgan, Esq., of Rochester, 
f W. H. C. Hosmer, Esq., of Avon. 



VIU PEEFACE. 

In all tliat relates to early difficulties -with the Indians ; to threatened renewals of 
the Border Wars, after the settlement of tlie country commenced, the autlior has been 
fortunate in the possession of authentic records, hitherto neglected, "wliich gives to 
the subjects a new and enhanced interest. The accounts of the treaties of Messrs. 
Pickering and Chapin, with the Indians, are mostly derived from official correspon- 
dence ; while most of what relates to the councils held with them to obtain land ces- 
sions, west of the Seneca Lake, are derived from the manuscripts of Oliver Phelps 
and Thomas Morris, the principal actors in the scenes. 

The author cannot but conclude, that poorly as the task may have been executed, 
it has been undertaken at a fortimate period. More than one half of this volume is 
made up from the reminiscences, the fading memories, of the living actors in the 
scenes described and the events related. No less than nine, who, witliin the last ten 
months, have rendered in this way, essential seivice, — without whose assistance the 
work must have been far more imperfect — are either in their graves, or their memories 
are wholly impaired. 

The thanks of the author are especially due to Henry O'Riellt, for the use of val- 
uable papers collected with' reference to continuing some historical researches, he had 
80 well commenced ; to James H. Woods, for the use of papers of Chas. Williamson ; 
to Oliver Phelps and James S. Wadsworth, for the use of papers in their possession, 
as the representatives of Oliver Phelps and James Wadsworth ; to John Grkig and 
Joseph Fellows for access to papers in their respective land offices ; and especially 
to the former, for the essential materials in his possession as the representative of 
Israel Chapin, and his son and successor, Israel Chapin ; to the managers of the 
Rochester Athieneum, for free access to their valuable Library ; to C. C. Clarke, of 
Albany, and S. B. B'jcklet, of Yates, for valuable contributions ; to numerous other 
individuals, most of whom are indicated in the body of the work. And to Lee, Manx 
& Co., the Printers, and Wm. Alling, the Publisher, for their Uberal terms, and the 
business accommodation with which they have aided the enterprise. 

[g^ The manner of publishing is a material departure from the original intention. 
Instead of publishing one work, there wiU be four. This is the fii-st of the series. 
Those that will follow in order — (and in rapid succession if no unforeseen difficulties 
occur) — will be : — P. and G. Purchase — Livingston and AUegany ; — P. and G. 
P. — Ontario and Yates ; — P. and G. P. — Wayne. In this plan it is confidently 
believed the interests of Author, Publisher and Purchaser, will oe made to harmonize. 
It obviates the necessity of a large work of two volumes, and a high price, fatal to that 
general sale that a local work must have, within its scope, to remunerate the labor of 
its preparation and defray the necessary expenses attending it. While the citizens of 
MoEJoe, for instance, will have all the general history of Phelps and Gorham'3 
■Purchase, and Morris' Resen^e — 493 octavo pages — brought down to a late Pioneer 
period ; they will not be under the necessity of purchasing at an an enhanced price, 
the mere local liistory of other counties. The only alteration there will be in the main 
body of the work, in the subsequent volumes announced, will be the correction of 
;any material eiTors that are discovered ; but there will be in each one of them, the 
■" Supplement," or " Extension," of the Pioneer history of the counties, as in this in- 
fitance — Monroe. 

The historical works which have been essential to the author's purposes, other than 
those duly credited, are : — Conquest of Canada, Travels of the Duke De la Roche- 
foueault Liancourt, Mary Jemison or the White Woman, Histoiy of Schoharie, His- 
tory of Onondaga, History of Rochester. 

12^" There are no illustrations : — partly because they are not essential to history, 
but jmainly because they enhance the cost beyond what the sales of any local work 
will warrant. The leading object has been in the mechanical execution of the work, 
to funnish a large amount of reading matter, in a plain, neat and substantial manner, at 
a LOW FBios, — which object, it will probably be conceded, has been accomplished. 

5t^° It will be observed, that little is said of the early history of Steuben. In an 
early stage of the preparation of the work, the author was apprised that a local histo- 
ry of that county, was preparing for the press. 

(j^^Errors m names, in dates, in facts, will undoubtedly be discovered. De- 
pending upon memories often infirm, one disagi'eeing with another, labor, weeks and 
months of careful research, could not wholly guard against them. O" Witli reference 
to the future entea-prises announced, the author will be thankful for any corrections 
that may be communicated to him personally, or tlirough the mails. 



PART FIRST. 



CHAPTER I. 



BRIEF NOTICES OF EARLY COLONIZATION. 



It was one hundred and sixteen years after the discovery of 
America by Columbus, before the occupancy of our race v^^as tend- 
ing in this direction, and European^ had made a permanent stand 
upon the St. Lawrence, under the auspices of France and Cham- 
plain. In all that time, there had been but occasional expeditions 
to our northern Atlantic coast, of discovery, exploration, and 
occasional brief occupancy ; but no overt act of possession and 
dominion. The advent of Champlain, the founding of Quebec, from 
which events we date French colonization in America, was in 1608. 
One year previous, in 1607, an English expedition had entered the 
Chesapeake Bay and founded Jamestown, the oldest English settle- 
ment in America. In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman, in the 
employ of the East India Company of Holland, entered the bay 
of the river that bears his name, and sailed up the river as far ar, 
Albany. In 1621, permanent Dutch colonization commenced at 
New- York and Albany. In 1620 the first Enghsh colonists com- 
menced the permanent occupancy of New England at Plymouth. 

In tracing the advent of our race to our local region, French 
colonization and occupancy, must necessarily, take precedence. 
Western New- York, from an early period after the arrival of Cham- 
plain upon the St. Lawrence, — until 1759, — for almost a century 
and a half, formed a portion of French Canada, or in a more ex- 
tended geographical designation, of Nev/ France. 

France, by priority of discovery, by navigators sailing under her 
flag, and commissioned by her King, in an early period of partition 
among the nations of Europe, claimed the St. Lawrence and ils 
tributary waters and all contiguous territory, as her part of the New 
World. Setting at defiance, as did England the papal bull of Pope 



10 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

Alexander VI., which conferred all of America, " its towns and 
cities" included, upon Spain and Portugal, her then King, Francis 
I. entered vigorously into the national competition for colonial pos- 
sessions in America. While the English and Dutch were cruizing 
upon our southern and eastern coasts, entering the bays, and mouths 
of their rivers, hesitating and vasciliating in measures of permanent 
colonization ; and the Spaniards were making mixed advents of gold 
hunting and romance, upon our. ■•south-western coast ; the French 
were coasting off the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and unappalled by 
a rigorous climate, and rough and forbidding landscapes, resolving 
upon colonization upon its banks. •' Touch and take," was the 
order of the day; with but little knowledge of the value of the vast 
region that had been discovered, of its capabilities and resources, 
but such as had been gained by navigators in a distant view of the 
coasts, and an occasional entrance into bays and rivers ; the splendid 
inheritance was parcelled out, or claimed by the nations of Europe, 
as lightly and inconsiderately as if it had been of little worth. 

The subjects of France, as it would now seem, when such a vast 
field had been opened for possession ; after they had seen and heard 
of more promising and congenial regions, made but a poor choice 
of her share in the New World. We are left principally to con- 
jecture for the explanation : First, the broad stream of the St. Law- 
rence invited them to enter and explore it ; no where were Europe- 
ans met by the natives with more friendly manifestations ; and a 
lucrative trade soon added to the inducements. It was a mighty 
flood that they saw pouring into the ocean, with a uniformity that 
convinced them of the vast magnitude and extent of the region it 
drained. Though ice-bound for long and dreary months, when spring 
approached, its fetters gave way, and on rolled its rushing tide, a 
•• swift witness" that it came from congenial regions embraced in 
their discovery. Beside, a " shorter route to the Indies," across this 
continent, was one of the prominent and early objects of European 
navigators, following the discovery of Columbus. It was in fact, a 
main object, allied perhaps with visions of precious metals ; — for 
actual colonization, was at first but incidental to the leading objects.* 

* Upon the shores of the Chesapeake, upon the Hudson and St. La'wrence, and in 
the ba3's of New England, the first information sought after bv European adreutures, 
of the natives, through the medium of signs, had reference to tlie dii'cctions from -wliich 
the rivers flowed, and the existence of precious metals. 



PHELPS A^D GORHAM's PUKCHASE. 11 

It was but a natural deduction, that the broad and deep river they 
had entered from the ocean, and its tributaries, were stretched out 
in a long line toward the Pacific coast.* 

The progress of colonization in all the northern portion of the 
continent, after discovery, was slow. What in our age, and espe- 
cially where our own countrymen are engaged, would be but the 
work of a year, was then the work of a century. It was before the 
world had been stimulated by the example of a free, government aijd 
a free people, iinincumbered by royal grants and charters, and their 
odious and paralizing monopolies. It was before governments had 
learned the simple truths that some of them are yet slow in appre- 
ciatinn;, that the hisher destinies of our own race are only to be 
worked out in the absence of shackles upon the mind and the phy- 
sical energies of the governed. It was when the good of the few- 
was made subservient to that of the many ; and Kings and their 
favorites were central orbs around which all there was of human 
energy, enterprize and adventure, was made to revolve as sattelites. 
It was when foreign wars and conquests, and civil wars, in w4iich 
the higher interests of mankind were but little involved, were divert- 
ing the attention of Europe from the pursuits of peace, civilization, 
and their extended sphere. There was no prophet to awake the 
sleeping energies of the Old World to an adequate conception of 
the field of promise that was opening here ; — no one to even fore- 
shadow all that was hidden in the womb of time ; and had there 
been, there would have been unfolded to Kings and Potentates, 
little for their encouragement ; but how much to m.\n, in all his 
noblest aspirations, his looking forward to a better time! 

When colonization, such as contemplated permanent occupation 
finally commenced, it was in a measure, simultaneous, upon our 
northern coasts. Two powerful competitors started in the race 



* The intrepid La Salle, with a spirit of daring enterprize that was never excelled, 

had no sooner seen the " avahuiche of waters" at Niagai-a, than he determined to fol- 
low them to their source. He had no sooner seen the upper waters of the MLssisi^inpi, 
than he had determined to see the j^-eat basin into which they tlowed. Leaving he- 
hind him detachments of lus followers to nuiintaiu the posts he established, and carry 
on lucrative trade, he was himself absorbed in the great objects of his mission, a new 
route to the Indies and the discovery of gold. The extent of his wanderings is sup- 
posed to have heen Chihuahua, in Kew Mexico. He was ahnost upon the right track 
with reference to both objects. Others beside hiuT, seem to have been prepossessed with 
the idea that there was gohl in that di'cction. Sihyll we conclude that through some 
nnknowu medium, some indistinct idea hud l)e?!i promulgated of what la our day is 
iictual discovery and acquisition ? 



12 PHELPS A>'D GOKHAil's FFFwCHASE. 

tor poi^sessioa and doniinion in America : and a third was awakened 
and became a competitor. While as yet the Pilgrim Fathers were 
retligees in Germany, deliberating as to where should be their 
assylum, appafled by all the dangers of the ocean and an inhospita- 
ble clime, and at times half resolving to go back and brave the per- 
secution Irom which they had fied : — while as yet there was but 
one feeble colony, upon aU our southern coast, and the rambling 
De Soto and the romiintic Ponce de Leon had been but disappcinted 
venturers in the south-west; the adventurous Frenchmen had 
ciitered the St. Lawrence and pkAted a colony upon its banks; 
had erected rude pallisades at Quebec and Montreal, and were 
making their way by slow stages in this direction. Hailing at 

K:- r~" "•■ "" ■ -.?) they struck off acroiss Canada by river and 

i- _ -1 — carrying their bark canoes over portages — 

-ad reached Lake Huron; then on, amid hostile tribes, until they 
. , , ,,..- ,_ , „, , : , .„;... _. ._.^jjj| tradinsr stations upon Lakes 

^- - - waters of the Mississippi, and the 

i.jiots nvers. 

In all the French --" ::.^.-5 j^ ^li^ §!■_ Lawrence, previous to that 
c^ Champlain, there -:erest save in those of Jaques Cartler. 

In his second one, in iooo. with three ships, and a large number 
oi accompanying adventurers he entered the St. Lawrence and 
gave It its name ; giving also, as he proceeded up the river, names 
to other localities which they yet bear. Arrived at the Island of 
Orleans, he bed a f-':— - ' ^erview with the natives. In a previ- 
ous voyage he had 5 . carried to France, two natives, who, 
^e^J^ling with him somewhat instructed in the French language, 
now acted as his interpreters, and gave a favorable account to their 
people of those they had been with, and the country they had seen. 
Proceeding on. he anchored for the winter, at ~ Stadacona."' after- 
wards called Quebec. Here he was met by an Indian chief, Dona- 
cona, wieh a train ot five hundred natives who wekomed his arri- 
val. The Indians giving Cartier intimation that a larger village 
than theirs lay farther njp the ri'ci^T. With a picked crew of thirty- 
five armed men he ascended the river, had fiiendly interviews with 
the natives upon its banks. Arriving at the present site m Mon- 
treal, he found an Indian viflage called Hocheiaga, which "^ stood in 
the midst of a great fieM of Indian, com, was of a circular fonn, 
: ntaining about Sfty large huts, each fifbr paces long and from 



PHZLPS Ai:i> GOEHA3I*5 PUECHASE- 13 

fourteen to Eileen wide, all built in th: ' ' . ' ^ 'of 

wood, and covered with birch bark ; t :o 

several rooms, sarrounding an open court in the centre, where the 
fires burned. Three rows of pallisades encircled the towr 
only one entrance : above the gate and over the whole le _ 
the outer ring of defence, there was a gallerr, approached by flights 
of steps, and pientL^ully provided with sto ' — Hes to 

resist attacL'"* The strangers were er. -rs and 

dances, and in their turn, made presents. The sick and infirm came 
to Jaques Cartier, who in the simple minds of the n ' 
some supernatural power over disease, which he -: 

the pious adventurer " read aloud part of the Gc^pei of St. John, 
and made the sign of the cross over tlie sufferers.'' 

Jaques Cartier returned to his colonv at St. Croix, after a firieadly 
parting with his newly acquired acquaintances at Hochelaga. In 
his absence, the intense cold had come upon his pe' V A, 

the scurvy had attacked them, twenty-five were d- -re 

more or less affected. The kind native g^^® him a remedy that 
checked the disease. f The expedition prepared to return to France. 
As if all of the first interviews of our race wiih the natives were to 
be signally marked by acts of wrong and outran, as an earnest of 
the whole catalogue that was to follow, under pretence that he had 
seen some manifestations of hostilities, Cartier signalized his depart- 
ure, and his ingratitude, by seizing the chieC Donacona, the former 
captives, and two others ; and conveying them on board his vessels, 
took them to France. The act was mitigated, it has been said, by a 
kind treatment that reconciled them to their fate. 

The expedition had found no " gold nor silver" and for that rea- 
son disappointed their patron, the King, and the people of France: 
added to which, were tales of suffering in a rigorous climate. Ja- 
ques Cartier, however, made favorable reports of all he had seen and 
heard : and the Indian chief, Donacona, as soon as he had acquired 
enough of French to be intellicrible, " confirmed all that Lad been said 
of the beauty, richness and salubrity of his native country."'" The 
chief, however, sickened and died. 

The next commission to visit the new dominions of France, was 

* C'iaquest of Canada. 

t A decoction of the leaf ana tte bark of the fir tree. 



14 PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

granted to Jean Francois de la Roche, with Jaques Cartier as his 
second in command. It was formidable in it:! organization and 
equipment; after a series of disasters: — the anival of Cartier. 
upon his old grounds; a reconciling of the Indians to his outrage, 
a winter of disease and death among his men ; a failure of de la 
Roche to aiTive in season ; it returned to France to add to a war in 
which she had just then engaged, reasons for suspending colonial 
enter}^rises. Almost a half ccnturv succeeded for French advents 
to become but a tradition upon the banks of the St. La%\Tence. 

How Hke a vision, in all this time, must those advents have seemed 
with ilie simple natives ! A strange people, with all that could excite 
their wonder : — their huge ships, their loud mouthed cannon, whose 
sounds had reverberated upon the summits of their mountains, in 
their vallies. and been re-echoed from the deep recesses of their 
forests ; with their gay banners, and music, and all the imposing at- 
tendants of fleets sent out by the proud monarch of a show\- and 
ostentatious nation of Europe ; who had addressed them in an un- 
known tongue, and b}' signs and symbols awed them to a contempla- 
tion of a Great Spirit, other than the terrible Manitou of their sim- 
ple creed ; who had showed them a '• book" in which were revela- 
tions the}' had neither " seen in the clouds nor heard in the winds ;" 
whose advent had been a mixed one of conciliation and perfidy: — 
who had given them a taste of '" strong water,'" that had steeped 
their senses in forgetfulness, or aroused their fiercest passions. All 
this had come and gone, began and ended, and hh behind it a vacu- 
um, of mingled wonder, amazement and curiosity ; and of dark fore- 
bodings of evil, if there was some kind spirit, caring for their future 
destiny, to foreshadow to tliem the sequel of all they had witnessed. 
Would the pale faced strangers come again ? — Would their lost ones 
be restored to reveal to them the mysteries of those wondrous 
advents: and tell them of all things they had seen in that far off 
laud, the home of the strangers ? These were the anxious enquiries, 
the themes around their council fi-res, in their wigwams, when they 
held communion with their pagan deities, or asked the moon and the 
stars to be the revelators of hidden things. One generation passed 
away and another succeeded, before the mysterious strangers came, 

Note. — To-«-ar<i the close of the period between the advents of Cartier and Chani- 
rilain, small e3q>edition5 of French fishermen and traders, generallv coasting off New 
toundland, occaaonallT entered tl»e St. Lawrence and traded \dth the natives. 



PHIXP3 JlSJ) GORHA^i's PrECHASZ. 15 

first to conciliate their favor by offering themselves as allies ; then 
to wrest from them empire and dominion. 

The first expedition of Champlain was in 1603 and '4. The ac- 
counts of them possess but little interest. In 1608, equipped by his 
patrons for an expedition, havingprincipally in view the fur trade, he 
extended his own views to the addition of permanent colonization, 
and missionary enterprize. Arriving at Quebec, he erected the first 
European tenements upon the banks of the St. La\\Tence. The In- 
dians, with whom Cartier had cultivated an acquaintance, were re- 
duced to a few in number, by removal, famine and disease. Re- 
maining at Quebec through a severe winter, reUeving the neccessi- 
ties of the Indians, his own people suffering imder an attack of the 
scurvy, Champlain in 1609, accompanied by two Frenchmen and 
a war party of the natives, wen-t up ti^e St. Lawrence, and struck off 
to the Lake that still bears his name. The war party that accom- 
panied him, were of the Algonquins and Hurons, of Canada, who were 
then at war with the Iroquois. Their object was invasion oi the Ir- 
oquois country, and Champlain, from motives of poHcy had become 
their allv. Upon the shores of a lake to which he gave tlie name of 
St. Sacrament — afterwards called Lake George— the party met a 
war party of two hundred Iroquois ; a battle ensued, the tide of it was 
as uusual, turning in favor of the warlike and almost every where 
conquering Iroquois, when Champlain suddenly made his appearance, 
with his two Frenchmen, and the first fire from their arquabuses, kil- 
led two of the Iroquois chiefs, and wounded a third. The Iroquois, 
dismayed, as well by the report and terrible effect of new weapons 
of war, as by the appearance of those who bore them, held out but 
Uttle longer; fled in disorder; were pursued, and many of them killed 
and taken prisoners. This was the first battle of which history gives 
us any account, in a region where armies have since often met. — 
And it marks another era, the introduction of fire arms in battle, to 
the natives, in all the northern portion of this continent. They had 
now been made acquainted with the two elements that were destined 
to work out principally their decline and gradual extermination. 
They had tasted French brandy upon the St. La\\Tence, English rum 
upon the shores of the Chesapeake, and Dutch gin, upon the banks 
of the Hudson. They had seen the mighty engines, one of which 
was to conquer them in battle and the other was to conquer them 
in peace councils, where cessions of their domains were involved. 



16 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

Champlain returned to France, leaving a small colony at Quebec ; 
was invited to an audience, and had favor with the King, who be- 
stowed upon all this region, the name of New France. * Cham- 
plain visited his infant colony again in 1610, and 1613. recruiting it, 
and upon each occasion going himself to battle with his neighbors 
and allies against the Iroquois. In 1615 a company of merchants in 
France, having procured a charter from the King, which embraced 
all of French interests in New France, gave to Champlain the prin- 
cipal direction of their affairs. Having attended to the temporal 
affairs of the colony, the conversion of the natives, by Catholic 
missionaries, engaged his attention. Four missionaries of the order 
of Recollets were enlisted. These were the first missionaries in 
Canada, and the first upon all our Atlantic coast, with the exception 
of some Jesuit missionaries that had before reached Nova Scotia. 
Leaving the large recruit of colonists he brought out at Quebec, 
where he found all things had gone well in his absence, the intrepid ad- 
venturer, and soldier as he had made himself, pushed on toMonti'eal, 
and joined again a war party of his Indian allies, against the Iroquois. 
The Iroquois were this time conquerors. Defeat had lessened the 
importance of Champlain in the eyes of his Indian allies, and they 
even refused him and his few followers, a guide back to Quebec, 
although he had been wounded. Remaining for the winter an 
vmwilling guest of his Indian allies, he improved his time, as soon as 
his wounds would allow of it, in visiting more of the wild region of 
Canada. In the spring he returned to Quebec, and in July, to 
France. 

For several succeeding years, Champlain visited and revisited the 
colony, extending and strengthening it ; encountering vicissitudes in 
France consequent upon the breaking up and change of proprietox'- 
ships ; his colony subjected to attacks from the Iroquois whom he 

* Charlevoix. 

Note. — It has remained for an indefatijjfuable researcher in the history of the early 
French occupancy of this region — 0. H. MarshaD.Esq. of Buffalo — to ascertain where 
Cliaraplain and his Indian allies invaded the territory of the Iroquois. They came 
across the lower end of Lake Ontario, and passing thi'ough what is now Jefferson and 
Oswego counties, crossed the Oneide Lake and attacked the Onondagas at theh prin- 
cipal settlement find Fort on the banks of the Onondaga Lake, when a battle ensued 
which lasted tlu-ee hours, the invaders gained no advantage ; and Champlain who 
expected a reinforcement endeavored in vain to induce his Indian allies to remain and 
continue the seige. He had received two severe wounds, and was carried in a basket 
of "wicker-work" to the shores of lake Ontario. He spent a cheary whiter among the 
Hurons on the iioilh shore of the Lake. 



PUECHASE. 17 

had injudiciously made his implacable enemies. Still, French colo- 
nization in New France slowly progressed, and trading establish- 
ments were multiplied. In 1623 a stone Fort was erected at Quebec 
to protect the colonists against the Iroquois, and a threatened end of 
amicable relations with the Hurons and Algonquins. In 1625, '6, 
the first Jesuit missionaries came out from France, among them were 
names with which we become familiar in tracing the first advents of 
our race in Western New York and the region of the Western 
Lakes. 

In 1627 the colonization of New France was placed upon a new 
footing, b}"^ the organization of the "Company of One Hundred Asso- 
ciates.'' Their charter gave them a monopoly in New France, and 
attempted to promote christianization and colonization, both of which 
had been neglected by making the fur trade a principal object. The 
"Company" engaged to introduce 16,000 settlers before 1643.' — 
Before the advent of this new association, the colony had become 
but a feeble one ; the Indians had become hostile and kept the French 
confined to their small settlements, at times, to their fortifications. 

Hostihties having commenced between France and England, the 
first vessel sent out by the Associates fell into the hands of the 
English. An English expedition after destroying the French trading 
establishment at Tadoussac, on the Sagenay, sent a demand for the 
surrender of Quebec. Champlain replied in a manner so spirited 
and determined as to delay the attack, until the English force was 
increased. In July 1629 an English fleet appeared, and demanded 
a surrender which Champlain with his reduced and feeble means 
of resistance was obliged to obey. The terms of capitulation se- 
cured all private rights of the French colonists, and most of them 
remained. Champlain, however, returned to France. It was a 
siege and capitulation in miniature, that after the lapse of more than 
a century, was destined to be the work of concentrated armies and 
navies, and weeks of fierce contest. 

English possession was surrendered by treaty in 1632. At the 
period of this small conquest : — "the Fort of Quebec, surrounded by 
a score of hastily built dwellings and barracks, some poor huts on 
the Island of Montreal, the like at Three Rivers and Tadoussac, 
and a few fishermen's log houses and huts on the St. Lawrence, 
were the only fruits of the discoveries of Verrazano, Jaques Cartier, 
Roberval and Champlain, and the great outlay of La Roche and 



18 PHELPS AND GOKHAm's PURCHASE. 

De Monts, and the toils and sufferings of their followers, for nearly 
a century." * 

Champlain returned in 163.3, having been re-appointed Governor 
of New France, bringing with him recruits of Missionary and other 
colonists, and gave a new impulse to colonial enterprize ; settle- 
ments began to be extended, and a college, with rich endowments 
was formed at Quebec, for the "education of youth, and the conver- 
sion of the Indians." While all this was in progress, Champlain, 
the founder of French colonization in New France, to whose perse- 
verance, courage, and fortitude, France was indebted for the foot- 
hold she had gained upon this continent, died, and was "buried in the 
city of which he was the founder."! 

Montmagny succeeded Champlain. Deprived of much of the 
patronage from the Associates that he had reason to expect, the work 
of colonization progressed but slowly during his administration, 
which continued until 1647. Trade, advanced settlements, agricul- 
ture, made but little progress, but missionary and educational enter- 
prises, had a powerful impetus. At Sillery, near Quebec, a college 
was founded. The Dutchess de Arguillon founded the Hotel Dieu, 
and Madame de la Peltrie, the convent of the Ursulines. The last 
named liberal patron was young, high born ; a devotee to her reli- 
gious faith, and a zealous propagator of it. She came herself to the 
New World, with a vessel of her own, accompanied by Ursulines, 
who blended their names and services conspicuously with the history 
of Lower Canada. Such was the eclat that attended the advent of 
the noble patron and her followers, who had left all the refinements, 
gaities, and luxuries of France, to take up their abode upon the wild 
and inhospitable shores of the St. Lawrence, that their arrival W' as 
signalized by a public reception, with military and religious observan- 
ces. 

The other principal events under the administration of Mont- 
magny, were the founding of Montreal, and the building of a 
Fort there and at the mouth oftheRichlieu, as out-posts against the 
Iroquois, who since they had become exasperated by Champlain, 
made frequent attacks upon the French settlements. A threat reach- 

* Conqiiest of Canada. 

tHe was one of the extraordinaiy men of his age and nation. Histoiy finds in him a 
marked character, and poetry and romance the model of an heroic adventm-er. 



PHELPS AND GOEIIAm's PURCHASE. 10 

ed the ears of Montmagny that they would " drive the white man into 
the sea," and becoming convinced of the powers of the wild warriors, 
whose strength he had no meansof estimating, he sought the means 
of estabUshing a peace with theni, in which he was encouraged by his 
neighbors the Hurons, who w'ere worn out, and their numbers re- 
duced, by long wars with their indefatiguable adversaries. The gov- 
ernor and the Huron chiefs met deputies of the Iroquois at Three 
Rivers, and concluded a peace. 

M. d' Ailleboust who had held a command at Three Rivers, was 
the successor of Montmagny, and continued as Governor until 16r>0. 
The peace with the Iroquois gave a spur to missionary enterprise 
and trade, both of which were extended. 

Durina; the administration of Montmagnv, missionaries and traders 
had followed the water courses of Canada, and reached Lake Hu- 
ron, where they had established a post. From that distant point, 
in 1640, came the first of our race that ever trod upon the soil of 
Western New York, and left behind them any record of their ad- 
vent. * On the 2d day of November, 1010, two Jesuit Fathers, 
Brebeauf and Chaumonot, left their mission station at St. Marie,. 
pn the river Severn, near Lake Huron, and came upon the Niagara 
river, both sides of which were occupied by the Neuter Nation, f 
They found this nation to consist of 12,000 souls, having 4,000 
waj'riors, and inhabiting forty villages, eighteen of which the mis- 
sionaries visited. They were, say these Fathers : — " Larger, 
stronger, and better formed than our Hurons." " The men, like 
all savages, cover their naked flesh with skins, but are less particu- 



* In a letter from Fatlier L'AUcmant to the Provincial of the Jesuits in France, 
it is mentioned that the ReeoUct Father Daillon passed the winter fif 162<; anionc; the 
IS enter Nation. If this is so, he waathe fir,st wliiteman who saw Western New York. 
The period is earlier than we can well suj^pose there could have been any Frenchman 
po far away fronr the settlements upon the St. Lawrence, especially when wc consi(1cr 
the then utter hostility of the Iroquois. Still, th(> Seneca branch of tliem may as early 
as this have tolerated a few missionaries and traders. 

t This Neuter Nation, then, were occupants of all the region between the Niagar;* 
and the Genesee rivers, Lake Ontario and the foot of Lake Erie, and a wide strip on 
the west side of the Niagara river. It was neutral ground, while surrounding nntion>t 
were at war, and they were neutrals. But three years oidy after the visit of Brebeauf 
and ChaumoT-ot, they were dis])os3osscd by the Iroquois. Thus the region became — 
as we found it — a part of the domains of the Seneca. Says Charlevoix : — "To avoid 
the fury of the Iroquois, they finally joined themselves against the Hurons, but gained 
nothing by the union. The" Iroquois, that hke lions that have tasted blood, can not Iw- 
satiated, destroyed all that came in their way ; and at this day there remains no tni.C';^ 
of the Neuter Nation." 



20 PHELPS AND GORHAMS PURCHASE. 

]ar than the Hurons in concealing what should not appear." " The 
Squaws are ordinarily clothed, at least from the waist to the knees ; 
but are more shameless in their immodesty than our Hurons." 
•'They have Indian corn, beans, and gourds in equal abundance; 
also, plenty of fish. They are much employed in hunting deer, buf- 
falo, wild cats, wolves, wild boars, beaver, and other animals. It is 
rare to see snow in the country more than half a foot deep. But 
this year, it is more than three feet." The Rev. Fathers found our 
remote predecessors here upon the soil of Western New York, 
with the exception of one village^ unfavorable to ttle mission they 
were upon, and intent upon which they had braved all the rigors 
of the season, and a long forest path which they soon retraced. 

If those Rev. Fathers were admirers of nature's almost undis- 
turbed works, fresh, as it were, from the Creator, and bearing 
the impress of His hands — and we may well suppose they w'ere, 
for they had come from cloistered halls and high seats of learning, 
and refinement — how must their e5^es have been satiated in view 
of the panorama of lakes and forests, hills and plains, rushing tor- 
rents, water- falls, and the climax in their midst — the mighty cata- 
ract of Niagara, thundering in its solitude ! Who would not wish 
that he had been among them — or what is perhaps more rational — 
that he could enjoy such a scene as Western New York then was ? 
The treaty with the Iroquois had but suspended their hostilities. 
In IGiS, they were again out upon their war-paths upon the banks 
of the St. Lawrence. Father Antoine Daniel had made a mission 
station of the small settlement of St. Joseph. When the Huron 
warriors had gone out upon the chase, while the missionary had the 
old men, the women and children, collected for religioJis service, a 
party of Iroquois stole upon them and massacred the whole. This 
was probably the first of a series of martyrdoms that awaited the 
Jesuit missionaries. In the early part of 1G40, a thousand Iroquois 
y. fell upon two villages of the Hurons, and neai'ly exterminated the 
whole population ; the missionary in caoh place meeting the fate of 
Father Daniel. This was followed up in the same year by an at- 
tack upon the Huron village of St. Johns, where nearly three thou- 
sand, with their missionary, were massacred ! Disease, as w^ell as 
the war-club, had visited the Hurons. "Most of the remnant of 
this unhappy tribe then took the resolution of presenting themselves 
to their conquerors, and were received into their nation. The few 



PHELPS AXD G0RHA3IS PURCHASE. 21 

who still remained wandering in the forests, were iiunted down like 
wolves, and soon exterminated." * 

In 1650, 31. de Lauson became the Governor of Xew France. 
During his administration, the colony made but slow advances ; 
flushed with their victories over their own race, the Iroquois grew 
bolder and more determined to expel another race whom thev 
regarded as intruders ; and who had been the allies of their foes. 
They almost continually hung upon the French settlements, and 
paralized their efforts. In 1G53, however, the Onondaga branch of 
the Confederacy petitioned the French Governor for the location 
of a missionary and trading establishment among them. The propo- 
sition was acceded to, but it served to exasperate the other nations, 
and was finally withdrawn by stealth, to avoid a massacre. 

In 1658, Viscount d'Arguson succeeded M. de Lauson. The 
commencement of his administration was signalized by a massacre 
of French allies, the Algonquins, under the very walls and guns of 
Quebec. A reverse, however — a defeat of a band of Mohawks 
at Three Rivers, was followed by a suspension of hostilities which 
was industriously improved by the French in extending their mis- 
sion and trading stations. But the Iroquois were soon again upon 
their w^ar-paths, giving the French colony but little repose. At a 
period when the colonists were desponding, and almost upon the 
point of abandoning the whole ground, and retiring to France, 
dArguson renewed a treaty with the Iroquois, and an exchange of 
prisoners. 

In 1062, a new Governor came out — the Baron dWvagour — 
and the French garrision was reinforced by an importation of 400 
soldiers. A Bishop of Quebec had now been appointed — M. de 
iMonts. He found all spiritual and temporal efforts likely to be 
paralized by the sale of spirituous liquors to the Indians, and the 
colonists, that d'Avagour had allowed. The Bishop hastened to 
France, represented the evil to the King, and came back with a 
new Governor, M. d'Mesy, who had orders to stop the destructive 
traffic, t The new Governor proved a tyrant, thwarted the mis- 
sionaries, fell into a general disrepute, and was soon recalled. 

* Conquest of Canada. 

tThis was probaljly tlie fij-st temperance moveraeut by other than "moral suasion," 
on this continent. The Catholie missionaries -were tiom the first, ho-wever, each a Fa- 
ther Matthew. 



22 PHELPS AKD GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

In 1663, the company of Associates relinquished all their rights 
in New France, which were transferred to the West India Compa- 
ny. In this year, all that is now the Canadas, Western and Central 
New York, was visited by a tremendous earthquake. * 

M. de Tracy came out as Governor under the West India Com- 
j'any in 1665, bringing with him a recruit of soldiers, and soon, 
with the aid of Indian allies, intimidated the Iroquois. A large 
number of families, artisans and laborers, were added to the colony, 
:incl forts were built at the mouth of the RLchlieu. In December, 
the Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas, sent deputations sueing for 
peace and an exchange of prisoners, which was readily agreed up- 
on. The Mohawks and Oneidas still holding out, after sending out 
an expedition against them that principally failed, M. de Tracy, at 
the head of 1200 French soldiers and 600 Indian allies, encounter- 
ed all the vicissitudes of a long march through the wilderness ; in 
which his army suffered for the want of food, and were only 
saved from starvation by subsisting upon chestnuts. Arriving at 
the villages of the Mohawks, he found them principally deserted. 
The finale of the formidable expedition was the burning of the 
Mohawk cabins, and the killing of a few old men and w^omen.t 
T^iittle of glory, and much of suffering, loss and disgrace, were the 
iVuits of the expedition. M. de Tracy retm-ned to France, and the 
guvernment devolved on M. de Courcelles. 

Peace with the Iroquois ensued, and a brief season was allowed 
for the progress of settlement and the promotion of agriculture. 
The administration of M. de Courcelles v.-as vigorous and well eon- 
ducted. Learning that the Iroquois were endeavoring to persuade 
the Western Indians to trade with the English, he menaced them 
with a formidable attack ; to make amends for murders of Iroquois 
by Frenchmen, he had led out and executed, the offenders, in view 
of those whose friends had been the victims ; and by other acts of 



* [See Appendix, Xo. L] There are strong evidences throughout all this region, of 
some gi'cat convulsion of the earth, as recently as "within the last two centuries. 
There are fissures in our rocks, extensive forests with timber growths of less than two 
centuries ; mounds and indentations of earth, as if whole forests had suddenly been 
uprooted ; immense sections of rock .and earth detached from their primitive locations 
upon hill sides, and the banks of om- streams ; sliaU we not say that all this dates 
from 1663 ? Some portions of the account would seem exaggerated ; but in all mat- 
ters of fact, the Jesuit Relations are accredited by historians. 

t The French found com enough buried in pits to liave supplied the Moliawks for 
two years. 



PHELPS AI?D GOEHAm's PTJECHASE. 23 

conciliation, preserved peace. A war broke out between the 
Iroquois and Ottawas, and he interfered and made peace. 

About this period, the small pox, always a most frightful scourge 
with the Indian race,* broke out among all the allies of the French 
upon the St Lawrence and the interior of Canada. In some instan- 
ces, whole tribes were exterminated ; the victims were enumerated 
b}' thousands ; in one village near Quebec, they amounted to fifteen 
hundred. 

Near the close ofM. de Courcelles administration, in 1671, by 
sending an indefatigable agent to all the Indian nations around the 
western Lakes, a grand council was convened at the Falls of St. 
Mary, when the sovreignty of the King of France was acknowl- 
edged, and a cross, bearing his arms, was set up. 

In 1671, Count Frontenac, a worthy successor of Champlain, his 
equal in all, and his superior in many respects ; advanced in age, but 
vigorous, arbitrary, in all his designs and movements ; took the reins 
of government in New France, and in many respects, created a new 
era. Following out the plans of his subordinate, M. Talon, an expe- 
dition was set on foot to explore the " great river," the "Mechasepe," 
in the dialect of the western tribes, of which but vague and inde- 
finite ideas had been gained of the natives. Marquette, a Jesuit 
Missionary, with Joliet, and other attendants, set out from St. Mary's 
and reaching the Miami, obtained from them two natives as guides. 
They struck upon the waters of Fox River, and descending them, 
crossed the short portage, and descended upon the waters of the 
Wisconsin River to its confluence with the Mississippi. Their 
guides having returned, the adventurous Frenchmen floated down 
the river in their frail canoes until they came to a village of the 
Illinois where they were " kindly and hospitably received." The ex- 
pedition, falling in with none but friendly natives, went as far down 
as below the mouth of the Arkansas, where, hearing that the river 
emptied itself into the Gulf of Mexico, instead of the Pacific, as they 
had fondly hoped ; and fearing that they might fall into the hands of 
the Spaniards ; they returned ; Marquette commencing missionary 

* Whenever the scoure;e has appeared upon this continent among the aborigines, it 
has swept off nearly all who were attacked. Theii- simple remedies suecesful in other 
diseases, have failed them in this. This has been principally attributed to the com- 
plexion, or ratlier the texture of the skin, differing from that of our race, in a toughness? 
that prevents the disease breaking out and expending itself upon the surface ; and 
sends it back to prey upon the vitals of its victims. 



24 PHELPS AJ^D GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

labors among the Miamis, and Joliet carryino- the news of their dis- 
coveries to Quebec. These were the first of our race that saw the 
upper Mississippi and its vast tributaries. The pages of general his- 
tory that tell of the hazardous journey ; that recounts the impressions 
made upon the mind of Marquette, who had a mind to appreciate all 
he saw in that then vast and hitherto unexplored wilderness of prairie 
and forest, inland seas, and wide rivers ; is one of peculiar attractions. 
Few historical readers will fail to peruse it. The name of a county 
in Illinois, and a village, perpetuates the names, and the memories of 
Marquette and Joliet. 



ADVENTURES OF LA SALLE — THE FIRST SAIL VESSEL UPON THE 
UPPER LAKES. 



Previous to the western advent of Marquette and Joliet, La Salle, 
a young Frenchman of ample fortune, after completing his educa- 
tion, with all the religious enthusiasm peculiar to the disciples of 
Loyola, mixed with a spirit of adventure then so rife in France, had 
crossed the ocean, pushed on beyond the farthest French settle- 
ments upon the St. Lawrence, and become the founder ofFrontenac, 
now Kingston, the ownership of which was conferred upon him by 
his King with the rank of nobility. The grant was in fact, that of a. 
wide domain, with some exclusive privileges of Indian trade. 

When Marquette and Joliet returned, they took Frontenac in their 
route, and found the young adventurer in the midst of his enterprises, 
drawing around him missionaries, traders, agriculturalists — the pa- 
troon of one of the most flourishing settlements of New France. — 
Listening to their accounts of the vast beautiful region they had 
seen, its broad Lakes, wude prairies — and with especial interest to 
their story of the "Great River," — he resolved upon following 
up their discoveries, by a new route, and extending French domin- 
ion across the entire continent. Returning to France, with the 
information he had obtained from various sources, his earnest impor- 
tunities inspired the king and his minister, Colbert, with confidence, 
and a commission of discovery was granted him. The object, as 
expressed in the commission, was, " to discover the western portion of 
our country of New France," and the suggestion was made, that 
through it a passage might be found to Mexico. The expedition 



PHELPS AND GORIIAJm's PUECHASE. 25 

was to be at his own expense, and that of his associates ; their pros- 
pective remuneration, a restricted monopoly of trade with the natives. 

With an Itahan named Tonti, Father Hennepin, a number oi 
meclianics and mariners, naval stores, and goods for the Indian 
trade, he arrived at Frontenac in the fall of 1678, and soon after a 
wooden canoe of ten tons, the first craft of European architecture 
that ever entered the Niagara River, bore a part of his company to 
the site of Fort Niagara. La Salle, followed soon after with a sail 
vessel, in which he had a stock of provisions, and materials for ship 
building ; crossed the Lake, coasted along its southern shore, entered 
the mouth of the Genesee River or the Irondequoit Bay, and visited 
some of the villages of the Senecas to reconcile them to his enterprise ; 
and on his way from the Genesee to the Niagara River, encountered 
a gale and lost his vessel, saving but a part of his cargo. Arrived at 
Niagara, he erected some rude defences, established a post, and at 
Lewiston erected a trading station with pallisades. Late in Janu- 
ary the business of ship building was commenced at the mouth of 
Cayuga creek, six miles above the Falls of Niagara. In mid winter, 
the neccessity occurring, the intrepid adventurer, on foot, made the 
journey to Frontenac, around the head of the Lake, returning on the 
ice along the northern shore, with a dog and sledge for the transpor- 
tation of his baggage. 

It was fortunate, perhaps, that during the ship's building, the war- 
riors of the Senecas wei^e principally drawn off in an expedition against 
some of the western enemies. Those that remained behind, hung 
around and watched the operations at Niagara as well as at the 
place of ship building. In consequence of their remonstrances, what 
was intended as the commencement of a Fort at Niagara, had to be 
abandoned, and a "habitation surrounded with pallisades" substitu- 
ted ; and they were almost constantly annoying the ship builders. 
The missionary, Hennepin, by mild persuasion, and the display of the 
emblems of the faith he was propagating, would seem to have aided 
much in reconcihng the natives to these strange movements they 



Note. — It should be observed that hitherto Lake Erie had been unexplored. The 
route to the Upper Lakes had been via the interior Rivers and Lakes of Canada, — 
Why the earlier adventurers, missionaries and traders, had failed to follow up the great, 
body of water that they saw discharging into Lake Ontario, is left to conjecture : — 
The jealousy with which the Senecas had guarded their teiritory, and then unwilling- 
ness, that the French should extend their alliance with their enemies the western na- 
tions, afibrdfl the most reasonable explanation. 

2 



26 PHELPS A2rD GOEHAMS PUECIIASE. 

were i;vitiiessing. Becoming discouraged, surrounded with dangers, 
the ship builders were once upon the point of desertion to the English 
settlements upon the Hudson, but were encouraged by the pious 
missionarv in "exhortations on hohdays and Sundays after divine 
serrice." He told them that the enterprise had sole " reference to 
the promotion of the glory of God, and the welfare of the christian 
colonies." On one occasion, while the vessel was upon the stocks, 
a scheme, the Senecas had devised for burning it, was frustrated by 
the timely warning of a friendly squaw. 

AE these difficulties were surmounted, and when the River and 
Lake had become clear of ice, a vessel of sixty tons burthen, ^as 
ready for the water. It was " blessed according to our Church of 
Rome," and launched under the discharge of artillery, accompanied 
bv the chauntins of the Te Deum ; the Senecas looking on with 
amazement, declaring the ship builders to be " Ot-kons," men with 
" penetrating minds." Some weeks followed of preparation for the 
voyage: trips by water were made to Frontenac ; trading parties 
went to the principal villages of the Senecas : and the Niagara Riv- 
er was explored to see how the vessel was to be got into Lake Erie. 
In the mean time the warriors of the Senecas returned from the 
westward, and their resentments were absorbed in wonder at all 
they saw ; awe, or fear perhaps, overcame their jealousies. Invited 
on board the vessel and hospitably entertained, they exclaimed, 
" ga-nor-ron," how wonderfid ! 

The vessel was named the " Griffin," in hon<^r of Count Fronte- 
nac, whose armorial bearing was the representation of two griffins. 
It was equipped with sails, masts, and every thing ready for naviga- 
tion, and had on board " five small cannon and two arquebuses.* 
After all was ready several attempts were made to ascend the Nia- 
gara, befor a wind sufficiently favorable occurred to insure success 
At last, with much severe labor, men being often placed on shore 
with tow lines to assist the sails — the vessel entered Lake Erie, 
and on the 7th of August, 1679, accompanied by the discharge of can- 
non, and the chaunting of the Te Deum, the first sail vessel was 
careering over its unknown expanse, groping its way with no charts 
to direct its course. 

* Eennepm, whose accotmt is principally relied opon, speafa of the great difficnlty 
attenriing the gettir ■ • -'- -- -- ' - - -- np the "three mountains" at Lewis- 

ton. He SS.JS " it ■ zesst anchor, bat brandy being given 

to cheer them, the - . :."' 



PHELPS AZO) GOEHAM 5 PrECHASZ. 'J , 

After a protracted voyage, the Griffin cast anchor in Green Bar, 
where a trade was opened with the natives and a rich cargo of furs 
obtained- Late in the season of navigation, it started on its return 
voyage to the Nia<rara River, encountered severe gales, and the 
vessel and all on board were never more heard of — their fate remain- 
ing a mystery.* 

Hennepin describing what they saw of the shores of Lakes Erie, 
St. Clair and Huron, and the banks of the Detroit and St Clair Riv- 
ers, observes ; — Those who will hare the good fortune some day to 
possess the beautiful and fertile lands, will be under many obliga- 
ffations to us, who have cleared the way. 

Anticipating the return of the iD-fated vessel, La Salle established a 
trading house at Mackinaw, and proceeding to the mouth of the St. 
Josephs, added to a small Missioaaxy station, under the care of Al- 
louez, a trading house with pallisades, which he eaEed the " Fort of the 
Miami." Despairing of the return of the Griffin, leaving ten men to 
jTuard the fort, with Hennepin, and two other Missionaries, Tonti, and 
about thirty other follower, the impatient adventurer ascended the 
St. J oseph and descended the Kankakee to its mouth. From there 
he descended the Illinois to Lake Peori where he erected :. ' " .'1 
the murmuring and discontent of his followers, who d: -ir 

leader and his expedition ruined by the loss of the Griffin. \ leiding 
temporarily to despondency, the stout hearted leader, nanaed it Fort 

Creve Cceur, the " Fort of the Broken hearted." 

Recovering his wonted enei^, however, he set his men to sawing 
ship plank, dispatched Hennepin with two followers to explore the 
Upper Mississippi, and started himself with three companions, for 
Frontenac, to procure i^ecruits, and sails and cordage for his vesel. 
The journey was made in the month of March, and was one of peril and 
suffering : the route overland to the Xiagara River, and from thence 
around the head of Lake Ontario to Frontenac. New adventurers 

* Unless the autihor ■sra? liffht in lite, courlnfdnn be farmed as to its fete in a prerio'ns 

•sroik. T'- ' - '- ■"■ : - ;■"-■■' ; = ';':---' -■ - ^ -r.^ 

hx the : - — .-5 

ciftiiee:.:_ - - -. ;_ .a 

lars'e todv oi sana and graTei i:prtii lise i.-- -ua ■vrjiert ii hau. uttn utieplT 

embedded, an anchor. li later T?f:--?Tf«jr ' • - t t?>?r? bs? V^?t! f^rr-d ^f'^'siai 
htmdred pounds of iron, sncii a? - ::i :. jii i . ' ' ujd 

n ear die spot rwo cannon, the ■«■':: dieeanb. .^ - ~- 

i'-'ir ■^■T Them. Tliere is bo reti-; •^. : \-.,:^iAkm. of tihr . -- w .„.. ,■.■^.--_ :-„. i-^^ji 
*.!.; -- n:n, at the eadj period in \rhirli these re^cs m"asi hare beai k^ vhere liiey 



28 PHELPS AND GOEIIAm's PUECIIASE. 

flocked to his standard, supplies were obtained, and he returned to 
his post upon the Illinois, which he found deserted. In his absence, 
it had been attacked by the natives ; an aged Missionary, Father 
Ribourde, had been murdered, and Tonti with a few followers, had 
escaped, and found refuge among the Potawatomies on Lake Mi- 
chigan. 

Returning to Green Bay, he commenced trading and establishing 
a friendly intercourse with the Indians ; collected his scattered fol- 
lowers ; built a spacious barge on the Illinois River, and in the early 
part of 1032, descended the Mississippi to the sea. He planted a 
cross upon the Gulf of Mexico, claimed the country for France, and 
called it Louisana. 

The sequel of these daring enterprises, that have no parallel even 
in our day of wondrous achievements — that paved the way for the 
occupancy of our race in all the vast region drained by the Missis- 
sippi — is a long chapter of disaster, of successes and reverses, mostly 
remote from our local region, and belonging to the pages of general 
history. In all that relates to French occupancy, of the Genesee 
country, the borders of the western Lakes, of the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi — especially, to the adventures of Marquette, Joliet, La 
Salle, Hennepin and Tonti, hitherto the historian has had but uncer- 
tain guides, and but unsatisfactory, authentic details. Recent dis- 
coveries in Quebec, and among the archives of the Jesuits, in Rome, 
afford encouragement that with some future historian these de- 
ficiencies will be supplied. In anticipation of this, the author leaves 
the high souled, adventurous La Salle, upon the threshold of adven- 
tures, that led him over the plains of Texas, to New Mexico ; that 
embraced, voyages to France by sea, shipwrecks, and a series of 
untoward events ; and ended in his murder by one of his followers, 
on the Trinity River in Texas, on a return, overland, to Frontenac. 

Well deserving was he of the eulogy bestowed upon him by our ac- 
complished national historian, Bancroft : — " For force of will and 
vast conceptions ; for various knowledge and quick adaption of his 
genius to untried circumstances ; for a sublime magnanimity that 
resigned itself to the will of Heaven, and yet triumphed over afflic- 
tion by energy of purpose and unfaltering hope, — he had no superior 
among his countrymen." 

In a previous work, the author in a brief review of a somewhat 
more elaborate account of the expeditions of La Salle, has remark- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 29 

ed : One hundred and thirty nine years ago, the Griffin set out upon 
its voyage, passed up the rapids of the Niagara, and unfurled the first 
sail upon the waters of the Upper Lakes. 

Intrepid navigator and explorer! High as were hopes and ambi- 
tion that could a,lone impel him to such an enterprise ; far seeing as 
he was ; could the curtain that concealed the future from his view, 
have been raised, his would have been the exclamation : — 

" Visions of glory, spare my acliing sight ; — 
Ye unborn ages, rush not on my soul!" 

Redeemed himself but adding to the nominal dominions of his 
King; but opening new avenues to the commerce of his country; 
founding a prior claim to increased colonial possessions. He was 
pioneering the way for an empire of freemen, who in process of time 
were to fill the valleys he traversed ; the sails of whose commerce 
were to whiten the vast expanse of waters upon which he was em- 
barking ! 

How often, when reflecting upon the triumphs of steam naviga- 
tion, do we almost wish that it were admitted by the dispensations 
of Providence that Fulton could be again invested with mortality, 
and witness the mighty achievements of his genius. Akin to this, 
would be the wish, that La Salle could rise from his wilderness grave 
in the far-off South, and look out upon the triumphs of civilizafion 
and improvement over the vast region he was the first to explore. 

Ours is a country whose whole history is replete with daring en- 
terprises and bold adventures. Were we prone, as we should be, 
duly to commemorate the great events that have marked our pro- 
gress, here and there, in fitting localities, more monuments would 
be raised as tributes due to our history, and to the memory of those 
•who have acted a conspicuous part in it. Upon the banks of our 
noble river, within sight of the Falls, a shaft from our quarries would 
soon designate the spot where the Griffin was built and launched ; 
upon its base, the name of La Salle, and a brief inscription that 
would commemorate the pioneer advent of our vast and increasing 
Lake commerce. 



Frontenac returned to France in consequence of disagreement 
with other officers of the colony, but to return again in after years. 
He was succeeded by M. de la Barre, who found the Iroquois dis- 



30 



PHELP5 AXD G0EHA3I5 PCECHASE. 



posed to lean toward the En^ish interests upon tlie Hudson, and 

assuming again a hostile attitude toward the French. The Otta- 

was, who were the allies of the French, had killed a chief of the 

m this and other causes, they were again exaspera- 

— ^ for descents upon the French settlements. Hith- 

ert cas, far removed from what had been the seat of war, 

r,aaIlT waging war with those of their own race, 

_ . _.._ lat little in the wais with the French. Provoca- 

tioDs DOW began on their part, in the wav of endeavoring to divert 
he Engli^ and in warring upon the French Indian allies : 
_-- -. - one occasion, they had robbed a French trading party ou 
their way to QlincMs. 

_- series of {oovocations were given by the Iroquois, which 

- Af -e la Barre to go against them with all the forces he 

He had information that a descent was to be 

r St Lawrence, He 

'. , . , ..X ^- 130 regular soldiers, 

in July. 16S3. While coming up the St. 
- A the Iroquois nations 

---r-- -u res of peace. The 

nations that they 
f Iroquois, if 



Kngiisfa 



M. de la Barre cr 



Ontar 



•enersoa county 

.- •- M-. 



or Hungry Bav. Tne 



b^ 



and eve: 



lj<TV^' 



et them, with 

j\ -^ ,-rch was made 

Grarangula, in a tooe 

iear or submission. * He 

■ • French force, 

ines. De la 






^<i^" rv^^ '- :r . sa barui?? beat U* i»«Sti«r 



PHELPS A^TD GORKAX'S PCSCiU^E. 31 

Barre, says the Baroab Hontart, who was present, " returned t - ~ - 
lent much enraged at what he had heard.""* The interview t 
by a stipoiatioa on the part of the Senecas that they would make 
reparation tor some alleged \A,Tongs ; * and on the part of the French 
Governor, that he would uiituediately -.viuvii-aw his army. The dis- 
comfitted and chagriaed la Barre withdrew an army laade feeble 
by disease and hunger; and upon reaching Montreal ': " ■'- v: 
a French force had arrived, which would have c, 
hombk the proud warriors, and provoking OTator he had met c«i 
the wild ^ores of Lake Ontaria 

[Of local eveats. the e^jwditLon of De NoaTille MIows. iwxt! in ortier of time. A 
brief alliasirta to it will be found ia JsEr. Hosmer's viiapter sport the S«iwca^ and mor* 
of it will be foimd iu the Appeu<£;x» No. 2.} 

The Iroquois were prompt to cairy the war home upon their in- 
vaders. In November following De NonvUle's expedition, they at- 
tacked the French fort on the Sorrel, and were repulsed, but they 
ravaged the neighboring Fwnch settlements, and made captives. 
Darkness lowered upon the Flreneh cause. 

" In this same year, there fell upc«i Canada an evil more severe 
than Indian aggression or English hostility. Toward the end of 
the summer, a deadly malady visite<.l the colony, and carried moitrat- 
ing into alnK>st every household. So great was the mortality, that 
M. De Nonville was constrained to abandon, or rather defer, his 
project of humbling the pride and power of the TsouBonthouans 
He had also reason to doubt the faith of his Indian allies ; eveia the 
Hurons ot" the tar West, who had fought so stoutly by his side on 
the shores of Lake Ontario, were discovered to have been at the 
time in treacherous correspondence with the Iroquois.*^' 

" While doubt and disease pairJized the power of the French, 
trieir dangerous enemies wexe not idle. Twelve hundivd Iiwjuois 
warriors assembled at Lake St. Francis, within two days' march 
of Montreal, and haughtily demanded audience of the Governor, 
which was immediately granted. Their orator proclaimed the 
power of his race, and the weakness of the Xvhite men, with all the 
emphasis and striking illustration of Indian eloquence. He offered 

* The -ftTinigs complsdued ot vrere the destnictiott, by the Seneoas, of a Uu^ 
lunuber of the oatux-s of the Fivnch twders, on theii- wav tt,> the West , the cakiu^ of 
tburtetni Fi-euohiaen as prisotters; aud tvtt attack tijva Oi» 'jif lh«* Wessleru liofts. — 
Psuis Doc. 



32 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

peace on terms proposed by the Governor of New York, but only 
allowed the French four days for deliberation." 

" This high-handed diplomacy was backed by formidable demon- 
strations. The whole country west of the river Sorrel, or Richlieu, 
was occupied by a savage host, and the distant fort of Cataracouy, 
on the Ontario shore, was with difficulty held against 800 Iroquois, 
who had burned the farm stores with flaming arrows, and slain the 
cattle of the settlers. The French bowed before the storm they 
could not resist, and peace was concluded on conditions that war 
should cease in the land, and all the allies should share in the 
blessings of repose. M. De Nonville further agreed to restore the 
Indian chiefs who had been so treacherously torn from their native 
wilds, and sent to labor in the galleys of France."* 

Before the treaty was concluded, however, the implacable ene- 
mies of the Iroquois, the Abenaquis, attacked them on the Sorrel, 
destroyed many, and pushed their conquest even to the English set- 
tlements. And nearly at the same time, another untoward circum- 
stance occurred ; an instance of cunning and knavery which has 
no parallel in Indian warfare : — Kondiaronk, a chief of the west- 
ern Hurons, with a retinue of warriors, sought an interview with 
De Nonville, for the purpose of reconciling some misunderstanding. 
Learning that peace was about to bo concluded between the French 
and Iroquois, he determined to prevent it. Pretending to go back 
to his own country, he went up the St. Lawrence, and lying m am- 
bush for the Iroquois, on their return from the treaty, he fell upon 
them with his warriors, killing many, and taking some prisoners. He 
then pretended that he was acting in concert with the French Gov- 
ernor, and that he had instigated the attack upon those with whom 
he had just concluded a peace. The scheme worked just as the 
wily backwoods Metternich had concluded it would : — A renewal 

* Conquest of Canada. 

Note. — The autlior of the history of the Conquest of Canada, says of De Wonville, 
in allusion to his seizure of the Iroquois, and sending them to France : — "His other- 
wise honorable and useful career can never be cleansed fi-om the fatal blot of one dark 
act of treachery. From the day when that evil deed was done, the rude but magnani- 
mous Indians, scorned as a broken reed the sullied honor of the French." The author 
should not have made De Nonville wholly responsible. In all probability, he acted 
under instructions. The instructions of Louis XIV. to La Barre, were: — "As these 
savages who are stout and robust, wiU serve with advantage in my gallevs, I wish 
you to do every thing in your power to make them prisoners of war, ana that you 
will have them shipped by every opportunity which will oflier for their removal to 
France." 



PHELPS AlTD GOEHAm's PUE^CHASE. 33 

of hostilities was soon made by the Iroquois, to revenge themselves 
for the supposed baseness of the French Governor. Twelve hun- 
dred Iroquois warriors made a descent upon the Island of Montreal, 
burnt the French houses, sacked their plantations, and put to the 
sword all the men, women and children within the outskirts of the 
town. "A thousand French were slain in the invasion, and twenty- 
six carried into captivity."* The marauders retreated, but not with- 
out further destruction of life; — a force of one hundred French and 
fifty Indians, sent in pursuit, were entirely cut off. " The disastrous 
incursions filled the French with panic and astonishment. They at 
once blew up the forts of Cataracouy, (Kingston,) and Niagara, 
burned two vessels, built under their protection, and altogether 
abandoned the shores of the western Lakes." f Frontenac arrived 
at Quebec in October, 1689, at a period of great depression with the 
colony. His hands were strengthened by the government of 
France, but a vast field of labor was before him. He repaired to 
Montreal, and summoned a council of the western Indians ; the 
first and most important consummation to be effected, being their 
perfect conciliation and alliance: — "As a representative of the 
Gallic Monarch, claiming to be the bulwark of Christendom — Count 
Frontenac, himself a peer of France, now in his seventieth year, 
placed the murderous hatchet in the hands of his allies; and with 
tomahawk in his own grasp, chaunted the war-song, danced the 
war- dance, and listened, apparently with delight, to the threat of 
savage vengeance." J 

In the February preceding the event just alluded to, the revolu- 
tion in England had been consummated. William and Mary had 
succeeded to the throne, and soon after which France had declared 
a war against England, in which the American colonies became at 
once involved, and a contest ensued, in which the question of undi- 
vided empire in all this portion of North America was the stake to 
be won; — France and England had both determined upon entire 
conquest, Frontenac succeeded in conforming the alhance of 
nearly all the western tribes of Indians, and through the mission- 

* Smith's History of New York. 

t So says the author of the Conquest of Canada. It is not probable that all the 
western posts were abandoned. 

t Bancroft. 



34 PHELPS AND GOKHAm's PURCHASE. 

aries was enabled to make a partial division of the Iroquois from the 
Endish interests. He soon received from his government instruc- 
tions to war for conquest, not only upon New England and New 
York, but upon all the Indian allies of the English. His instruc- 
tions contemplated an attack upon " Manathe," (" Manhattan" or 
New York,) by sea, and an attack upon Fort Orange by land, 
and a descent upon the Hudson, to co-operate with the naval 
expedition. The French force in Canada, of regulars and militia 
was about two thousand. In February, 1689, an expedition 
started from Montreal, and after a long march through the wild- 
erness, in which they were obliged to walk up to their knees 
in water, and break the ice with their feet, in order to find a solid 
footing, they arrived in the vicinity of Schenectady, the then 
farthest advanced of the English settlements. Arriving at a soli- 
tary wigwam, the benumbed and disabled from the effects of the 
severe cold weather, warmed themselves by its fire, and information 
was gained from the squaws who inhabited it, how they could best 
fall upon the village and execute their terrible mission of war and 
retribution upon those who had assisted the Mohawk branch of the 
Iroquois in their onslaughts upon the French settlements. In all 
their march and contemplated attack, they had been assisted by a 
former chief of the Mohawks, who had deserted his country and 
identified himself with the French allies at the west. Approaching 
the point of attack, he had eloquently harangued the French and their 
Indian allies to "lose all recollections of their fatigue in hopes of 
taking ample revenge for the injuries they had received from the 
Iroquois, at the solicitation of the English, and of washing the-m out 
in the blood of the traitors." * At eleven o'clock at night they came 
near the settlement, and deliberating whether they should not post- 
pone the attack to a more dead hour of the night, were compelled by 
the excessive cold to rush upon their victims and destroy them, to 

* He -was, says the French official account, "withont contradiction, the most con- 
sidei'able of his tribe — an honest man — as full of sj^irit, generosity and prudence as 
was possible, and capable at the same time of great undertakings." 

Note. — The English account of the massacre at Schenectady, contained in the Lon- 
don Documeutfi, gives the names of sixty of "ye people kilod and destroyed;" of 
twenty-seven who were carried prisoners to Canada. The few of all the population 
that escaped, being a detached part of the settlement, the residence of the British com- 
mandant of tlie place, " Capt. Sander," whose wife had shown some favor previously 
to some French prisoners. The French account, in the Paris Documents, says that 
" the Uves of fifty or sixty persons, old men, women and children were spai-ed, tliey 
having escaped tlie first fury of attack." 



PHELPS AND GOEHAJl's PUPvCHASE. 35 

enjov the warmth of their burning hamlets. A small garrison, where 
there were soldiers under arms, was first attacked, carried, set fire 
to and burned, and all its defenders slaughtered. Then succeeded 
hours of burning and massacre, until almost the entire population 
and their dwellings had been destroyed. The details of the terrible 
onslaught are familiar to the general reader. It was a stealthy mid- 
night assault, a work of the sword and the torch, that has few par- 
allels in all the wars upon this conthient. The whole forms an early 
legend of the Mohawk, and was the precursor of the terrible scenes, 
that in after years were enacted in that once harrassed and ravaged, 
but now smiling and peaceful valley. 

As if satiated with this work of death ; paralized by the severity 
of the weather, or intimidated by the English strength at Albany ; 
the French retraced their steps, with their prisoners and plunder, not. 
however, without sufiering from hunger and cold, enough to make 
the victory, if such it could be called, a dear one. The flesh of 
the horses they had taken at Schenectady, was for a part of the 
march their only food. About one hundred and fifty Indians and 
fifty young men of Albany, pursued them to Lake Charaplain, and 
even over it, killing some and taking others prisoners. 

Another expedition left Three Rivers and penetrated the wilder- 
ness to the Piscataqua River in Maine, surprised a small English 
settlement, killed thirty of its inhabitants, and made the rest prisoners. 
After which they fell in with another French force, and destroyed 
the English Fort at Casco. 

A third expedition went among the Western Indians to confirm 
their alliance by intimidation and a lavish bestowal of presents ; 
and was by far the most successful of the three. It helped vastly to 
turn trade in the direction of Montreal, and strengthened the French 
with many of the powerful nations of the west. On their way, they 
fell in with and defeated a large war party of the Iroquois. 

While all this was in progress, war parties of the hostile Iroquois 
had been making repeated incursions down the St. Lawrence, 
harrassing the French settlements. 

The incursions of the French at the eastward had aroused the 
people of New England to make common cause with the people of 
New York and their Iroquois allies. In May, 1690, deputies from 
New York and all the New England colonies met in Albany, and 
made the quarrel their own instead of that of England, who had been 



36 PHELPS AND G0RHA3l's PURCHASE. 

remiss in aiding tlieir colonies to carry it on. A general invasion 
of the French colony was resolved upon. Two expeditions were 
arranged, one to sail from Boston to Quebec, and the other to cross 
the country to the St. Lawrence, and descending the River, join the 
naval expedition at Quebec. Both were failures. The land force, 
under General Winthrop of Connecticut, 800 strong, marched from 
Albany to Lake Champlain, where they were disappointed in not 
meeting 500 Iroquois warriors as had been aggrecd upon, and the In- 
dians had also failed to provide the necessary canoes for crossing 
the Lake. A council of war was held and a retreat agreed upon. 
Major Schuyler of the New York levies, had however, preceded the 
main army, and crossed the Lake without knowing that Winthrop 
had retreated. He attacked a small garrison at La Prairie, and obliged 
them to fall back toward Chambly. The French in retreating, fell 
in with a reinforcement, and turned upon their pursuers ; a severe 
engagement ensued ; overpowered by numbers, Schuyler was obliged 
to retreat. Sir William Phipps had command of the naval ex- 
pedition, which consisted of 35 vessels and 200 troops. After captur- 
ing some French posts at New Foundland, and upon the Lower St. 
Lawrence, the British squadron arrived at the mouth of the Sage- 
nay, Frontenac having learned that the English land force had 
turned back, had hastened to Quebec, and ordered a concentration 
of his forces there. The slow approach of the New England inva- 
ders gave him a plenty of time to prepare for defence. On the 5th 
of October the squadron appeared before Quebec and the next day 
demanded a surrender. To the enquiry of the bearer of the mes- 
sage, what answer he had to return, the brave old Count said : — 
" Tell your master I will answer by the mouth of my cannon, that 
he may learn that a man of my rank is not to be summoned in this 
manner." The attack followed : — A force of 1700 was landed un- 
der Major Walley, and had much hard fighting, with but indifferent 
success, with French out-posts. In the mean time, Phipps had 
anchored his vessels, bearing the heaviest guns against the town and 
fortress. The fire was mostly ineffectual ; directed principally 
against the high eminence of the Upper Town, it fell short of the 
mark, while a destructive fire was pouring down upon the assail- 
ants. The siege was continued but twenty hours, when the British 
fleet fell down the stream out of the reach of the galling fire from 
the high ramparts of the besieged fortress. The force under Major 



PHELPS AI)fD GORHAMS PUECHASE. 37 

Walley, upon land, continued the fight, generally succeeding in 
their approaches. After a series of sharp engagements, the land 
force were obliged to resort to a hurried embarkation on board of 
their vessels. It was a night scene of panic and disorder, many 
losing their lives by the upsetting of boats. The artillery that was 
taken on shore, fell into the hands of the French. Leaving nine dis- 
abled ships, Phipps returned to Boslon to add to the news of there- 
treat of Winthrop, the sad account of the result of his siege of 
Quebec. 

Then followed a winter of repose with the French colony, but of 
dismay and apprehension in New England and New York, whose 
fleet and army had so signally failed. But the Iroquois who had 
failed to co-operate with Winthrop in the fall, were early in the 
field by themselves in the spring. In May, a thousand of their 
warriors approached Montreal, laying waste the French settlements, 
and re-enacting all the horrid scenes of former years ; though not 
without some instances of severe and summary retributions before 
they had effected their retreat. In a few weeks the incursion was 
repeated, and with similar results. 

Then followed seven years of English and French and Indian war, 
the French under the energetic administration of Frontenac, all the 
while extending their settlements, and strengthening their whole co- 
lonial position, though with arms in their hands. They were mostly 
content to act upon the defensive, while on the part of the Enghsh 
colonies, there seems to have been no energy in aiding the Iroqiiois to 
carry on the war. In ni36, Frontenac, despairing of any reconcilia- 
tion with the Iroquois, resolved upon another invasion of their terri- 
tory. He assembled all his disposable forces of French and Indian 
allies at Fort Frontenac, (Kingston,) and crossing Lake Ontario dis 
embarked at the mouth of the Oswego river. His army was a form- 
idable one, and it was provided with a train of artillery as if he was 
to attack a walled town instead of weak pallisade Forts. After en- 



Noxr. — The details of battles that occurred along in these years upon the St. Law- 
rence, wotild alone confirm all of daring heroism that has bee"n attributed to the Iro- 
quois, and give us a clue to their long series of conquests over their ovra race. Crossing 
Lakes Ontario and Champlain, in inclement seasons, Avith their frail canoes, and de- 
scending the St. Lawrence by land and water amid snows and ice, there was not onlj 
their stealthy assaults and savage warfare, but on many occasions with the stoicism of 
their race added to ordinary bravery — they faced for 'hours the trained and veteran 
soldiers of France, astonishing the men of discipUne in the aiis of war with their 
achievements. The best solcUers of France, and England, were not a match on many 
occasions, for an equal number of untaught soldiers of the wigwam and forest. 



38 PHEPLS AND gorham's purciiase. 

tering the Onondaga Lake, the army was divided, a portion of it being 
sent against the Oneidas, while Frontenac landed with the main force 
destined for the attack upon the Onondagas. The old Count had 
now become so decrepid from age and hard service, that he was 
borne to the point of attack upon a litter ; presenting a scene spiced 
somewhat with romantic heroism, if the object of attack had in any 
considerable degree corresponded with the military array and pre- 
paration. The French army landed upon the banks of the Lake, and 
threw up some defences. The Onondagas were aware of the ap- 
proach, fortified themselves as well as they could in their castle, 
.sent away all but their warriors, and resolved upon a desperate de- 
fence. They were, however, intimidated by a Seneca prisoner, who 
had escaped from the French, who told them that Frontenac's army 
" was as numerous as the leaves on the trees, and that they had ma- 
chines which threw up large balls in the air, which falling on their 
cabins would burst in pieces scattering fire and death every where 
around, against which their stockades would be no defence," This 
was a kind of warfare new to them, and which they resolved not to 
encounter, setting fire to their castle and cabins, t-hey fled and left 
their invaders the poor triumph of putting to death one old Indian 
Sachem, who remained to become a sacrifice and defy and scorn 
the invaders, even while they were applying their instruments of 
torture. The Oneidas fled at the approach of the other division of the 
French army, but thirty of them remaining to welcome the invaders 
and save their castle, village, and crops. TJ|py were made prisoners 
and the village, castle, and crops destroyed. No rumor came from 
the English, but the fear of one hastened the French retreat across the 
Lake to Fort Frontenac, and from thence to Montreal. 

The treaty of peace concluded at Kyswick, and the death of Fron- 
tenac soon followed, leaving partial repose to the harrassed French 
and English colonies. The amiable CalHeres, the governor of IMon- 
treal, succeeded Frontenac, but hardly lived to witness the consum- 
mation of his wise measures for conciliating the Iroquois, renewing 
Indian alliances, and generally to better the condition of the affairs 
of New France. He was succeeded by Vaudreiul who was soon 
waited upon by a deputation of Iroquois, that acknowledged the 
French dominion. 

It was but a short breathing spell for the colonies : — In May, 
1702, what was called " Queen Ann's war," was declared, and the 



PHELPS AND GOKHAM's PURCHASE. 39 

scenes of what had been called " King ^ViHiam's war," were re-enact- 
ed upon this continent. 

The Province of New York took butHttle part in the contest, and 
its chief burden fell upon New England. The Indians, within their 
own limits, reinforced by the Indians of Canada, and not unfrequent- 
ly accompanied by the French, made incursions into all parts of the 
eastern English Provinces, falling upon the frontier settlements with 
the torch, the tomahawk and knife, and furnishing a long catalogue 
of captivity and death, that mark that as one of the fnost trying pe- 
riods in a colonial history, upon almost every page of which we are 
forcibly reminded how much of blood and suffering it cost our pio- 
neer ancestors to maintain a foothold upon this continent.* The 
war on the part of the English colonies, was principally directed 
against Port Royal, Quebec and Montreal. Most of the expeditions 
they fitted out were failures ; there was a succession of shipwreck, 
badlv framed schemes of conquest ; organization of forces but to be 
disbanded before they had consummated any definite purposes ; 
" marching up hills and marching down agairv." 

Such being the geographical features of the war ; the Province 
of New York having assented to the treaty of neutrality between 
the French and Five Nations, and contenting itselt with an enjoy- 
ment of Indian trade, while their neighboring Provinces were strug- 
gling against the French and Indians ; there is little to notice having 
any immediate connexion with our local relations. 

Generally, during the war, the Five Nations preserved their 
neutrality. They managed with consummate skill to be the inti- 
mate friends of both the English and French. Situated between 
two powerful nations at war with each other, they concluded the 
safest way was to keep themselves in a position to fall in with the 
one that finally triumphed. At one period, when an attack upon 
Montreal was contemplated, they were induced by the English to 
furnish a large auxiliary force, that assembled with a detachment of 
English troops at Wood Creek. The whole scheme amounting to 
a failure, no opportunity was offered of testing their sincerity; but 
from some circumstances that transpired, it was suspected that they 
were as much inclined to the French as to the English. At one 



' From the year 1675, to the close of Queen Ann's War in 1713, about six thousand 
of the English colonists, had perished by the stroke of the enemy, or by distempers 
contracted in military service. 



40 PHELPS AIN'D GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

period during the war, five Iroquois Sachems were prevailed upon 
to visit England for the purpose of urging renewed atten:ipts to 
conquer Canada. They were introduced to the Queen, decked 
out in splendid wardrobe, exhibited through the streets of London, 
at the theatres, and other places of public resort ; feasted and toast- 
ed, they professed that their people were ready to assist in extermi- 
nating the French, but threatened to go home and join the French 
unless more effectual war-measures were adopted. This was a les- 
son undoubtedly taught them by the English colonies, who had sent 
them over to aid in exciting more interest at home in the contest 
that was waging in the colonies. The visit of the Sachems had tern- 
porarily the desired effect. It aided in inducing the English gov- 
ernment to furnish the colonies with an increased force of men ^md 
vessels of war, in assisting in a renewed expedition against Mon- 
treal and Quebec, which ended, as others had, in a failure. They 
got nothing from the Five Nations but professions ; no ov^ert act of 
co-operation and assistance. The Governor of the province of 
New York, all along refused to urge them to violate their engage- 
ments of neutrality ; for as neutrals, they were a barrier to the 
frontier settlements of New York, against the encroachments of the 
French and their Indian allies. 

"The treaty of Utrecht, in April, 1713, put an end to the war. 
France ceded to England 'all Nova Scotia or Arcadia, with its 
ancient boundaries ; also, the city of Port Royal, now called An- 
napolis Royal, and all other things in those. parts, which depend up- 
on the said lands.' France stipulated in the treaty that she would 
* never molest the Five Nations, subject to the dominion of Great 
Britain,' leaving still undefined their boundaries, to form with other 
questions of boundary and dominion, future disagreements. ' 

In all these years of war, French interests at the West had not 
been neglected. In 1701, a French officer, with a small colony 
and a Jesuit missionary, founded the city of Detroit. * The peace 
of their respective sovereigns over the ocean, failed to reconcile 
difficulties between the colonies. The trade and the right to navi- 
gate the Lakes, was a monopoly enforced by the French, which the 
English colonies of New York were bent upon disturbing, though 



* Almost a century before tlie settlement of Western New York had advanced be- 
yond the Genesee river. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 41 

the terms of peace had in effect, confirmed it. The English as- 
sumed that all of what is now Western New York, was within 
their dominions, by virtue of but a partial alliance of its native 
owners and occupants ; and the French claimedby a similar tenure; 
for, in fact, it was a divided alliance, fluctuating with the policy of 
the Senecas, who seemed well to understand the importance of 
their position, and were resolved to make the most of it. Soon af- 
ter 1700, we find a marked and progressive change in the disposi- 
tion of the Senecas towards the French. This we may well at- 
tribute to the influence of the Jesuit missionaries, who had suc- 
ceeded in getting permanent missionary stations among them, in a 
greater degree, perhaps, to the advent of an extraordinary person- 
age, who, for a long period, exercised an almost unbounded influ- 
ence throughout this region. This was Joncaire, a Frenchman, 
who, from a captive among the Senecas, merged himself with them[ 
was adopted, and became the faithful and indefatigable promoter 
of the French interests. We first hear of him from Charlevoix, who, 
in 1721, found him the occupant of a cabin at Lewiston, where he 
had gathered around him a small Indian settlement, and where a 
fortress was contemplated - the right to build which, he had nego- 
tiated with the Senecas. He then bore a commission in the French 
army. He was familiar with all the localities of this region, and 
gave to Charlevoix a description of the " river of the Tsontonouans," 
(Genesee river,) the Sulphur Springs at Avon, and the Oil Sprincr 
at Cuba. In 1750, Kalm, the German traveller, found a half-blood 
Seneca, a son of hLs at Lewiston ; and in 1753, Washincrton made 
the acquaintance of another son of his, while on a mission to the 
French at the West, and mentions that he was then preferring the 
French claim to the Ohio, by virtue of the discoveries of La Salle. 
In 1759, these two half-blood sons bore commissions in the French 
army, and were among the French forces of the West, that were 
defeated on the Niagara River, on their way to re-inforce the be- 
sieged garrison. In 1730, M. de Joncaire, the elder, had made a 
report to the French Superintendent at Montreal, of all the Indians 
whom he regarded as "connected with the government of Canada." 
He embraces the whole of the Iroquois nations, and locates them 
principally through this State, from Schenectady to the Niagara 
River ; and in Canada, along near the lower end of Lake Ontario 
all of the nations of Canada, and all inhabiting the valleys of the 



42 PHELPS ^NJS-D goeha:\i's pueciiase. 

western lakes, the Ohio and the Mississippi. In this official docu- 
ment, he mentions that he is " engaged at the history of the Sioux." 
" He spoke," says Charlevoix, " with all the good sense of a French- 
man, whereof he enjoys a large share, and with all the sublime 
eloquence of our Iroquois." 

The peace of Utrecht, i-n 1713, had but illy defined the respective 
dominions of the English and French, in this quarter ; but the Gov- 
ernor of New York assumed that it gave the English the jurisdic- 
tion they had claimed. In 1726, the English Governor, Burnett, built 
a fort at Oswego, and a "public store-house" at the Bay of "Ironde- 
quoit." The year previous, the French, upon the ruins of the tem- 
porary works of De Nonville, had built Fort Niagara against the 
protests and remonstrances of the English. * 

The occurrences of a long succession of years, of Indian out- 
breaks, of French descents upon New England settlements, of re- 
taliatory expeditions, of French and Indian wars, have in the main 
but little reference to this local region, though dominion here was 
one prominent cause of contention. Peace between the mother 
countries had but little influence with the colonists ; they would 
make war upon their own account as often as difficulties arose out 
of mixed occupancy, and conflicting claims to jurisdiction. The 

Note. — Were it not that namks desceud tlirough tJie maternal line, the descendants 
of Joncau-e T^oiild be found among the Senecas of the jjresent day, in all probability; 
for French blood has no -where run out among the natives when once merged with 
them. Inquuy would hardly fail to find among Ihem traditions of Joucau-e, and those 
who are his living descendants. * ..- 

* The site of Fort Niagara commanded tlie key to the western lakes. The French 
were aware that its occujinucy and fortification was necessary to the maintenance of 
the dominion they claimed y.gainst English encroachments. Previous to 1721, Jon- 
caire had secured a mixed trading, missionary and military station at Lewiston. Even 
this met with the strong opposition of the Enghsh authorities of K"ew York, and all of 
the Six Nations, except the Senecas, Avho had the right of controlling the matter. The 
Senecas persisting in allowing their favorite to build liis "cabin" where he chose, 
the English asked for joint occupancy. To which the Senecas replied: — "Our 
country is in peace, the French antl you will never bo able to live together without 
raising disturbances. Moreover, it is of no consequence that Joncaire should remain 
here ;"he is a cliild of the nation ; he enjoys tliis right, wliich we arc not at liberty to 
take from him." Soon after tliis, the successful negotiator extended his views farther 
down the river, and paved the way for flie erection of a strong fortress at Niagai'a. 
Tins was accomplished by a ra'SE on the part of Joncaire and other French officers. 
The Senecas had no idea of admitting either French or Enghsh fortifications upon 
their territory. A body of French troops arrived and encam])ed at the mouth of the 
Niagara river, to commence the work, but were by no means strong enough to under- 
take it in the presence of the Senecas, who were watching their movements. They at 
first got permission to build a "wigwam with one door ;" and then to divert the Sene- 
cas from being witnesses of the formidable work they were contemplating, joined them 
in a general hunt, which kept them away until tlie work was far enough advanced to 
enable the French to protect themselves against attack. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 43 

French continued to extend their posts to the West and South West, 
and the English to strengthen the frontiers of New England, and 
their advance post at Oswego. 

In 1744, Great Britain declared war against France and Spain. 
The first blow struck upon this continent, was the capture of Louis- 
burg, which success emboldened Governor Shirley, of Massachu- 
setts, to ask the co-operation of the other colonies in an attempt to 
drive the French from all their iVmerican possessions ; some de- 
monstrations with that view were made ; but the principal events 
of the campaign were at sea, and upon the frontiers of New Eno-- 
land. The short war was closed by the peace of Aix la Chapelle, 
of 1748. Its chief result had been the loss to the French of all the 
Northern frontier coast, to repair which, they immediately projected 
schemes for extending their dominion to the valley of the Ohio, and 
upon the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1750, commission- 
ers met in Paris to adjust American boundaries, but after a long 
session, accomplished nothing. Difficulties arose in a new quarter. 
The crown of England granted to an association of its subjects at 
home, and in Virginia, called the Ohio Company, 600,000 acres of 
land upon the Ohio river, all of which was upon territory claimed 
by France. The attempts of this Company to survey and settle 
these lands, and the building of French posts upon them, simulta- 
neously, brought the English and French colonists into direct con- 
flict. The campaign was opened by the Governor of Virginia, who 
sent an armed force to the disputed ground. Other colonies soon 
co-operated ; and after the contest had been attended with alternate 
successes and reverses, in 1755, General Braddock came with a 
force from England, to aid the colonies. All the events of the war 
upon the Allegany and the Ohio, form prominent pages of American 
history ; ultimately connected with the history of our western 
States ; but deriving its chief general interest from the circumstance 
that it was the school of experience and discipline, where the sword 
of the youthful Washtngton was first unsheathed. 

Braddock's defeat followed ; then General Shirley's abortive ex- 
pedition in the direction of Niagara ; Sir William Johnson's par- 
tially successful expedition to Lake George ; the advent of Lord 
Loudon, as Commander-in-chief of the British army in America ; 
which principal events closed the campaign of 1755 ; and in the ag- 
gregate, had darkened British prospects on this side of the Atlantic. 



44 PHELPS AND GOEHA]m's PUECnASE. 

The campaign of 1756, opened with the successful attack of the 
Marquis de Vaudreuil, upon an English fort, in what is now the 
county of Oneida; which, after an engagement of Bradstreet with 
a French force on the Oswego river, was followed by the capture of 
the British fort at Oswego, by the Marquis de Montcalm. 

These principal events, with the dark filling up of French and 
Indian depredations at the w^est; amounting almost to the exter- 
mination of the border settlers of Pennsylvania ; gave to British in- 
terests, at the close of the campaign of 17^6, an aspect even less 
encouraging than the one with which it was commenced. 

Montcalm opened the campaign of 1757, early in the spring, by a 
harrassing investment of Fort William Henry, by a force under the 
command of Vaudreuil and Longrieul ; a reinforcing and strengthen- 
ing of Crown Point, Ticonderoga and Niagara. During the summer, 
Lord Loudon collected the main force of the regular army, all the dis- 
posable forces of the colonies, and with a powerful naval armament 
added, undertook the capture of Louisburg, on the Island of Cape Bre- 
ton, but abandoned the design when a victory seemed easily attaina- 
ble; for reasons which remain a mystery in the history of English war- 
fare. Taking advantage of this diversion of the English forces, Mont- 
calm in person completed the conquest of Fort William Henry. It 
was a year of disasters with the English ; formidable armies and navies 
were embarked and disembarked, expensive expeditions were abor- 
tive ; one of their strong fortresses had gone into the hands of the 
French. In no modern era, save that of the American Revolution, 
has English pride of foreign conquest been more humbled. 

In 1758 a new era with England commenced : — It was that of 
Mr. Pitt's administration of its affairs. So untoward was the aspect 
of its affairs when he assumed the helm of government, that it was 
with difficulty, that confidence could be restored. "Whoever is in, 
or whoever is out," said Lord Chesterfield, in one his letters, " I am 
sure w^e are undone both at home and abroad : at home by an increas- 
ing debt and expenses ; abroad by our ill luck and incapacity. The 
French are masters to do what they please in America. We are no 
longer a nation. I never yet saw .so dreadful a prospect." 

The first brilliant achievment under the new order of things, was 
the capture of Louisburg. Procuring the removal of the naval and 
military officers, who had proved so inefficient in America, Mr. Pitt 
recalled Lord Amherst from the army in Germany, and made him 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 45 

commander in chief of the expedition, and made the Hon. Edward 
Boscawen the Admiral of the fleet. An expedition consisting of 22 
ships of the line, 15 frigates, 120 smaller vessels, on board of which 
were nearly 12,000 British regulars, sailed from Portsmouth and arri- 
ving at Halifax on the 28th of May, soon commenced the siege of 
Louisburg, which ended in a capitulation of the strong fortress, after 
a gallant and protracted resistance, on the 25th of July. The fruits 
of the conquest were 5,600 French prisoners ; 11 ships of war taken 
or destroyed; 250 pieces .of ordnance ; 15,000 stand of arms, and a 
great amount of provisions and military stores. A scene of plunder 
and devastation followed in all that region, which dimmed the lustre 
of British arms. 

Far less of success attended British arms in this campaign in other 
quarters : — Mr. Pitt had infused among the despairing colonies, a new 
impulse; they had sent into the field an efficient force of 9,000 men, 
which were added to6,000 regulars — all under the command of Aber- 
crombie. In July, he had his strong force afloat on Lake George, 
proceeding to the attack upon Ticonderoga and Crown Point. A 
protracted siege of Ticonderoga followed, badly conducted in almost 
every particular ; the sequel, a retreat, with the loss of nearly 2,000 
men. The intrepid Bradstreet soon made partial amends for this un- 
fortunate enterprise, by the capture of Fort Frontenac, then the strong 
hold of French Indian alliance. General Stanwix advanced up the 
Mohawk and built the Fort that took his name. In the mean time 
General Forbes had left Philadelphia with an eflicient army of over 
6,000 regulars and provincials, and after a defeat of his advance force, 
had captured Fort du Quesne, changing the name to Fort Pitt in 
honor of the great master spirit who was controlling England's des- 



!NoTE. — How often are triumphs of arms, the result of chance ! It is bat a few 
years since an American General confessed that a splendid Nactory was owing to the 
fact that some undisciplined troops did not know when they were faii'ly conquered, 
persevered in the fight and turned the tide of battle. An English historian, candid 
upon every subject he touches, admits tliat the capture of Louisburg was accidental : — 
The first successful landing was made by Wolf, then a Brigadier General. Gen. 
Amherst doubted its practicability. " The cliivalrous Wolf himself, as he neared the 
awfcl surf, staggered in his resolution, and proposing to defer the enterprise, waved his 
hat for the boats to retire. Three young subaltern officers, however, commanding the 
leading cioft, pushed on shore, having mistaken the signal for what their stout hearts 
desired, as an order to advance ; some of their men, as they sprung upon the beach, 
were dragged back by the receding surge and drowned, but the remainder cUmbed up 
the rugged rocks, and formed upon the summit. The Brigadier then cheered on the 
rest of the division to the support of the gallant few, and thus the almost desperate 
landing was accomplished." 



46 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

tinies, At the close of the campaign of the year, Abercrombie had 
been recalled, and General Amherst, who had returned to England 
after the capture of Louisburg, had arrived in America invested 
with the office of commander in chief. 



CHAPTER II 



SIEGE AND SURRENDER OF FORT NIAGARA. CONQUEST OF WESTERN 

NEW YORK. 



Toward the close of 1758, the policy of the British Minister, Mr. 
Pitt, began to be clearly developed. It looked to no farther ineffi- 
cient measures but to a vigorous and decisive campaign, which 
should terminate in the anihilation of French power and dominion up- 
on this continent. The British people, stimulated by a spirit of con- 
quest, and a hatred of the French, both of which had been assidu- 
ously promoted by the public press, and public men of England, 
seconded the ambitious views of the Minister. Parliament, in ad- 
dressing the Throne, applauded him, and upon the recommendation 
of the King, were prompt and liberal in the voting of supplies. 

And care had been taken upon this side of the Atlantic, to secure 
cordial and vigorous co-operation ; the colonists, wearied wdth war 
audits harrassing effects, were cheered by the expressions of the 
commiseration of the King, and his assurances of protection and 
final indemnification ; and more than all, perhaps, by an overt act of 
Parliament, in voting them the sum of £209,000, as a compensation 
for losses and expenses consequent upon the war. The strong, im- 
pelling motive of interest had been preparing the way for a cordial 
co-operation of the colonists in the magnificent scheme of conquest 
that Mr. Pitt had projected. In its success was involved the high 
prizes, a monopoly of the Indian trade, the commerce of tlie Lakes, 
and the consequent vastly extended field of enterprise which would be 
opened. The board of trade had brought every appliance within their 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 4*7 

control to bear upon the King and Parliament, and of course, had not 
failed to magnify the hindrances to British interest which continued 
French dominion imposed ; nor to present in glowing language, the 
fruits of conquest and the extension of British power in America. 
Sir William Johnson, always faithful to his liberal patron the King, 
was more than usually active in wielding the immense influence he 
had acquired with the Indians to secure their aid ; he drew them 
together in different localities, urged upon them his professions of re- 
gard for their interests, inflamed their resentments by recounting 
the wrongs they had endured at the hands of the French ; listened 
to their complaints of English encroachments upon their lands, and 
was lavish in promises of ample reparation ; not omitting the more 
than usually liberal distribution of presents, of which he was the 
accustomed almoner. By much the larger portion of the Five Na- 
tions of the Iroquois were won over to the British interests, a portion 
of the Senecas being almost alone in standing aloof from the contest^ 
or continuing in French alliance. 

General Amherst havino- succeeded to the oflSce of Commander 
in Chief of the British forces in North America, had his head quar- 
ters in New York, in the winter of 1758, '9, actively calling to his 
aid the provincial troops, appointing Alban}^ as the place of rendez- 
vous, at which place he established his head quarters as early as the 
month of April. 

The force at the disposal of General Amherst, was larger by far 
than any that had been before mustered upon this continent. In 
addition to a large force of British regulars, the colony of Massachu- 
setts had furnished seven thousand men, Connecticut five thousand, 
and New Hampshire one thousand. The provincial regiments, as 
fast as they arrived at Albany went into camp, and were subjected 
to rigid discipline ; the regulars, who were destined for operations at 
the north, were pushed on and encamped at a point some fifty miles 
on the road to Fort Edward. 

The general plan of the campaign contemplated the conquest of 
the three important strong holds, and seats of power, of the French ; 
Quebec, Montreal, and Niagara. The main army, under General 
Amherst, were to move from the shores of Lake George, reduce the 
French posts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, descend by the river 
Richlieu and occupy Montreal ; then, on down the St. Lawrence to 
join the besiegers of Quebec. 



48 PHELPS AND GOPvHAMS PURCHASE. 

Leaving the northern expeditition to the province of general his- 
tory, with the exception perhaps of a brief allusion to it in another 
place, we will take up that portion of the general campaign, which 
is more immediately blended with the history of our local region : — 

The force destined for Niagara rendezvoused at Schenectady 
early in May. It consisted of two British regiments ; a detachment 
of Royal Artillery; a battalion of Royal Americans ; two battalions 
of New York Provincials; and a large force of Indian Allies under 
the command of Sir William Johnson ; the most of whom were 
Mohawks, Oneidas and Onondagas, the remainder, Cayugas and 
Senecas, with a few from such western nations as had been partly 
won over to the British interests. Brigadier General Prideaux was 
the Commander in Chief; next in rank, was Sir William Johnson, 
who previous to this had been regularly commissioned in the British 
army. The force moved from Schenectady on the 20th of May, 
came up the Mohawk, and via the usual water route to Oswego, 
where it remained, completing the preparation of batteaux for ascend- 
ing Lake Ontario, for over five weeks. On the first of July, the 
whole force were embarked, and coasting along the shore of the Lake 
toward their destination ; a strong fortress, the seat of French domin- 
ion, over a widely extended region ; the key or gate-way to the pri- 
mitive commerce of the western lakes ; its battlements in solitary 
grandeur frowning defiance to any force that would be likely to reach 
it through difiicult avenues, in its far off location in the wilderness. 
Never in all more modern periods, have the waters of Ontario borne 
upon their bosom a more formidable armament. In addition to a 
large force, to their stores and camp equipage, was the heavy artillery, 
and all the requisites that British military skill and foresight had 
deemed necessary for the reduction of a strong ibrtress by regular 
approaches; such as the plan of attack contemplated. And how 
mixed and made up of different races, and men of different habits 
and characters, was this expedition! — There was the proud com- 
missioned and titled Briton, who had seen more of the refinements 
and luxuries of courts, than of the hardships of camps in the wilder- 
ness ; veteran officers and soldiers, who had fought in European 
wars, inured to the camp and the field ; the sons of the wealthy and 
influential colonists in New York, along the Hudson river counties, 
who had sought commissions in the army, and were going out in 
their first campaign. Provincials, men and boys, transferred from 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 49 

the stores counting-houses, and mechanic shops of New York, and 
the rural districts of Westchester, Richmond, Kings, Queens, Suffolk, 
Dutchess, Ulster, Orange, Albany, and the lower valley of the Mo- 
hawk, to the camp, the drill, and the march that seemed then as far 
extended, and beset with more difficulies than would one over 
the mountains to Oregon now ; and lastly there was the warriors of 
the Iroquois, fully imbued with their ancient war spirit, decked out 
with feathers, claws, and hoops, the spoils of the forest chase — and 
with new paiut, broad-cloths, blankets and silver ornaments, the gifts 
of the King. 

The armament coasted along up the south shore of the Lake, en- 
camping on shore ; the first night at Sodus, invited there by the 
beautiful bay, in which their water craft could be made secure from 
winds and waves, as their frail structure demanded. Their other 
halting places for the night, were at Irondequoit, Braddock's Bay, 
and Johnson's Creek ; (which latter place was named in honor of Sir 
William Johnson ;) arrived at the mouth of the Eighteen Mile Creek, 
(what is now the village of Olcott,) within eighteen miles of Fort 
Niagara, a halt was made to enable reconnoitering parties to go out 
and determine whether the French had made a sortie from the Fort 
in anticipation of their arrival. 

As they coasted along up the lake, they had occasionally dis- 
charged their heavy artillery, well knowing that a noiseless approach 
would give them no advantage, as the Indian scouts from the garri- 
son, glimpses of whom had been caught upon several occasions, had 
kept the French well informed of their movements ; and there were 
Iroquois enough in the French interest, belonging to the lower na- 
tions, to give the French missionaries and traders, in all their local- 
ities in Western New York, timely notice of all that was going on. 
Bat they wished to inspire the Senecas in their interests with cour- 
age and the neutrals with terror ; and well, perhaps, did their device 
subserve those purposes. 

Leaving the British army almost within sight of the field of con- 
flict, let us pass over the lake, and down the river St. Lawrence, to 
see what preparation had been made for their reception : — 

Well informed at home of the policy of Mr. Pitt ; of the prepara- 
tory acts of Parliament; of the shipping of reinforcements to the 
British army in America ; of all the minutiae, in fact, of the cam- 
paign ; the French had not been idle. Despatches were sent to M. 



50 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

De Vaudrieuil, the Governor of Canada, and his hands were strength- 
ened by reinforcements from France. He lost no time in putting 
Quebec, IMontreal, Crown Point, and Ticonderoga, in the best pos- 
sible state of defence. Proclamations were made to the Canadian 
militia, commending them in the highest terms for their former 
services; reminding them of their former triumphs ; and appealing 
to them to join in the final struggle for the dominion of their King 
and country, over the fairest and best portions of the New World. 
The gallant Montcalm had succeeded Dieskau, as commander in 
chief of the French forces in Canada, and was active in the w'ork 
of preparation. Captain Pouchot, a skillful and experienced engi- 
neer, was sent to put Fort Niagara in a condition for defence, and 
to assume the command of it. 

On the 7th of July, the British force under Prideux, broke up 
their brief encampment at the Eighteen Mile Creek, and by land 
and water, moved up to the Four Mile Creek, making a stand upon 
the western shore of the Bay, where they then began an entrench- 
ment, and commenced the work of opening an avenue through the 
forest. A small scouting party of French and Indians, came upon 
the advance workmen, as they were about to emerge from the forest 
into the open ground, a few shots were exchanged, and the party re- 
tired into the fort. A fire was opened upon the besiegers from the 
fort, which was kept up during the greater portion of the night. 
On the 8th, the English prosecuted the work upon their entrench- 
ments, the French continuing their fire upon them at intervals from 
the fort, and Monsieur La Force * coasting up and down the Lake 
in the armed schooner Iroquois, occasionally reaching them with a 
shot. General Prideux sent an officer with a flag into the fort, de- 
manding a surrender, which was very courteously refused by the 
French commander. On the 9th, but little transpired beyond the 
exchange of a few shots, and a slight advance of the besiegers. On 
the 10th, the English advanced into the open ground, protecting 
themselves by entrenchments, under an occasional fire from the fort. 



* He may, with propriety, be called tJie Admiral of the Lake ; for he commanded 
the only sail vessel upon it. He -was a kind of fresh water Van Tromp, or Paul 
Jones ; at one period, we hear of Mm as an active negotiator between the French and 
Enalish, at Fort du Quesne ; at another, in the command of a scouting party, har- 
rassingthe border settlers of Virginia ; at another, loaded witli chains, in jail at Wil- 
lianisburgh, from wliicli he was liberated by tlie humanity of Washington, who had 
known him upon the Ohio ; and lastly, in the command of an armed schooner, active 
and brave, in the French service on Lake Ontario. 



PHELPS AND GORIIAm's PURCHASE. 51 

which became ahnost incessant during the night, obliging them at 
times to suspend their works. The small French force at Schlosser, 
succeeded in reaching the fort. On the 11th, a small party of 
French approached within a short distance of the English trenches, 
from which they sallied out in strong force, but were driven again 
into their defences, by the guns of the fort. At 5 P. M., the Eng- 
lish opened their fire with eight mortars. 

The siege continued from day to day, and night to night, with oc- 
casional, but not long-continued intermissions ; the French, too few 
in number to risk a sortie, holding out valiantly amid the tumbling 
walls of their devoted fortress, seriously annoying the besiegers 
by an active fire, that often arrested the progress of their works, as 
may well be inferred from their slow approaches ; wearied with toil 
and want of rest; at times, almost upon the point of abandoning 
the unequal contest. On the 14th, the besiegers liad so extended 
their works, as to be enabled to bring a heavy force to bear upon 
the fort. On the evening of the 19th, their General, (Prideux,) who 
had so well planned the attack, and, so far, so well executed it, 
was accidentally killed, while giving his orders in the trenches, by 
the premature bursting of a shell, discharged from a cohorn mortar. 
The vigor with which the siege was prosecuted, may be judged 
from the fact, that in one night, they threw three hundred bombs. 
Thus things continued until the morning of the 23d, when the be- 
sieged had a gleam of hope that was destined not to be realized : — 
Anticipating this attack. Captain Pouchot had sent runners to 
Presque Isle, Le Bosuf, Venango, and Detroit, ordering them with 
their commands, and all the Indian allies they could muster, to 
repair to Niagara. At a moment when it seemed that the dilapidated 
fortress, and its diminished and wearied defenders could hold out no 
longer, two western Indians made their way into the fort, bringing 
word from Monsieur Aubrey that he had arrived with a force of 
nearly twenty-five hundred French and Indians, at Navy Island, 
opposite the " Little Fort," (Schlosser.) Four Indians were imme- 
diately despatched, to inform Monsieur Aubrey of the critical con- 
dition of the fort, and urge him to press forward to its relief 

The command of the British force having now devolved upon 
Sir William Johnson, he had anticipated the approach of the 
French and Indians from the West, and kept himself carefully ad- 
vised of their movements, by means of his Indian runners. On 



52 PHELPS AISTD GORHAM's PUECHASE. 

the evening of the 23d, he sent out strong detachments of troops, 
and posted them along on either side of the road leading from the 
fort to the Falls, about two miles from the fort, where they rested 
upon their arms during the night. Early in the morning of the 
24th, other detachments of his most effective troops were ordered 
from the trenches before the fort, to re-inforce those already posted 
upon the Niagara River. The success of his protracted siege, 
novir depended on arresting the march of D'Aubrey. 

The British force had but just been posted for the encounter^ 
when the French and Indians, under D'Aubrey, came down the 
river. The British out-posts fell back, and joined the main body. 
The opposing forces were now drawn up in order of battle, and 
D'Aubrey gave the order for attack. His western Indian allies, 
hitherto principally concealed, swarmed from the woods, and gave 
the terrific war-whoop, at the same time, rushing upon the English 
lines, followed by the French troops. The British regulars, and 
such provincials as had seen Httle of Indian warfare, quailed for a 
moment in view of the fierce onslaught ; the Iroquois and the prac- 
ticed Indian fighters, among both regulars and provincials, stood firm. 
In a moment, the shock was met as firmly as it had been impetu- 
ously made. Volley after volley was discharged upon the fierce 
assailants from the whole British line, and from the Indian flanking 
parties, until the Indian assailants gave way and left the field. 
Deserted by his Indian allies, D'Aubrey bravely led on his French 
troops against the English column, and was pressing it vigorously, 
when a reinforcement of Johnson's Indians arrived from the trench- 
es, and assailed his flanks, and aided powerfully in turning the tide 
of battle against him. Standing firm for a short time, and return- 
ing the English and the Indian fire, he gave way and ordered a re- 
treat, which soon assumed the character of a total rout. The 
English pressed upon the vanquished and retreating French, and 
made prisoners, or shot down by far the larger portion of them. 
But a remnant of them escaped into an inhospitable and trackless 
wilderness. D'Aubrey and most of his principal ofhcers were 
among the captives. This was the main and decisive feature of 
the protracted siege. The contest was but of short duration ; but 
long enough, with the vigor and desperation with which it was 
waged, to strew the ground for miles with the dead bodies of the 
combatants. 



PURCHASE. 53 

How vivid is the picture presented to the imagination, of this 
early scene ! It v^-as then far, far away, in any direction, from the 
abode of civilization. There were no spectators of that sudden clash 
of arms, of that protracted siege ; all were participants. Hundreds 
of miles beyond the heaviest sounds that like earthquake shocks 
must have gone out from the conflict, were the nearest of our race, 
save those who were at Frontenac and Oswego, and the few mis- 
sionaries and traders upon our interior rivers. The outlet of vast 
inland lakes, the shores of which had been scarcely tread by Euro- 
peans, hushed to comparative stillness, after having tumbled over 
the mighty precipice, and madly rushed through the long narrow 
gorge that succeeds, was rolling past, its eddies dashing heavilv 
against.the shore, moaning a requiem over the dead that were thicklv 
strewn upon it. Death and carnage, the smoke of battle, the gleam- 
ing of steel, had chosen for their theatre a marked spot, romantic 
and beautiful as any that arrests the eye of the tourist, in that reofion 
of sublime and gorgeous landscapes. There was the roar of musket- 
ry, the terrible war-hoop ; the groans of the dying ; the fierce assault 
and firm repulsion ; precipitate retreat, and hot and deadly pursuit ; 
the red warrior loading himself with trophies of the tomahawk and 
scalping knife, that would signalize his valor in the war dance, or 
tale out his deeds of blood at a place of reward : 

"The sliout of battle, the barbarian yell, the bray 
Of disonaut instrameuts, the clang of arms, 
The shrieks of agony, the gi-oan of death, 
In one wild uproar and continued din 
Shook the still air !" — Southey. 

In yonder ancient structure, standing out in bold relief, solitary 
and isolated even now ; was a handful of brave men, their numbers 
thinned, holding out after a long siege ; encouraged by hopes that 
were crushed, when their brave countrymen, deserted by treacher- 
ous allies, gave way before a superior force. Stretched out upan 
yonder plain, in long hues of batteries and entrenchments, were the 
besiegers, who, advancing from day to day, had approached so near, 
that every shot from their heavy artillery told upon the massive 
walls they were assailing. 

It was a new scene in the wilderness; — nature in her solitudes 
and fastnesses, was affrighted ; the wild beasts hurried farther and 
farther, into the recesses of the forest, or huddled in their lairs, 



54 PHELPS AISTD GORHA:\i's PURCHASE. 

trembling as each successiv'e crash came upon their unaccustomed 
ears. It was a calm July morning. The surface of that wide ex- 
panse of water, smooth and unruffled, mirrored the scene of fire and 
smoke, of waving banners and advancing columns. Stunning and 
deafening came the sounds of battle ; — then a hushed silence, as if 
war and conquest stood appalled in view of the work of death they 
had wrought ; in which brief pause would come the roar of the 
mighty cataract, rushing in as if impatient to riot in its accustomed 
monopoly of sound! The "great thunderer" was contending with 
its first rival ! High over all arose the smoke of the two battle 
grounds to the clear blue heavens, and mingling there with the spray 
of the cataract, was carried off' by a gentle breeze ; and at the suns 
decline, when the strife was ended, it canopied and spanned the deep 
blue waters, — a bow of promise and a harbinger of peace. 

The French in the Fort had been close observers of every sign 
without, and had seen enough to make them apprehensive of the re- 
sult upon the river bank ; but hours passed by before they could 
know with certainty the fate of the gallant men who had been 
arrested in their march of intended relief. An Indian scout gained 
access to the Fort informing them of Aubrey's total defeat and rout, 
and in a few minutes, a British officer entered and demanded a 
surrender, accompanying the demand with an exhortation from Sir 
William Johnson against the necessity of further bloodshed, and the 
intimation that his exasperated Indian allies could not be prevented 
from wreaking vengence upon the captives if the fight was further 
prolonged. Captain Pouchot, with the advice and concurrence of 
of his officers, yielded to fate and necessity ; and more than all, per- 
haps, to the fearful apprehension that farther doubtful resistance 
would make victims to savage warfare, of his unfortunate country- 
men and their allies. Terms of capitulation were agreed upon, hon- 
orable to both parties ; and thus ended a well planned and well con- 
ducted siege; stood out against with almost unexampled heroic 
fortitude ; and thus commenced the English possession of Fort Niag- 
ara, and dominion over all the region oi Western New York. 



Note. — The battle ground is upon the banks of the Niagara River bet%veen tlio vil- 
lages of Youngstown and Lewiston, below the Five Mile Meadows. Its principal 
theatre was at a small inlet which was known to the early settlers by the name of 
"Bloody Run." Soon after 1800, when settlement of that region commenced, gun 
baiTels, gun locks, broken swords, bayonets and " bill axes" were found on the surface 
of the earth, and up to this period, tJae plough fi-equently discloses relics of the battle. 



PHELPS AND GORIIAM's PtJECHASE, 55 

The terms of capitulation assented to by Sir William Johnson, 
should be added to the evidences thai while he excelled in bravery 
and military foresight, a life in the wilderness, far away from the 
incentives and examples of civilized life, had not made him insensi- 
ble to the obligations of humanity and courtesy. Anticipating the 
bloody scenes we must yet pass through, to conduct the reader to the 
main objects of our narrative, the wish obtrudes itself that he could 
have been 'spared to have exercised his vast influence in after years 
in arresting the tomahawk and the scalping knife. The vanquished 
were allowed to pass out of the Fort with the honors of war, and lay 
down their arms. It was stipulated that the French officers and 
soldiers should be conducted to New York, where comfortable quar- 
ters should be furnished them ; that the females and children should 
have safe convoy to the nearest port of France ; and that the woun- 
ded should be taken care of, and conveyed to New York as soon 
as they were able to undertake the journey. Upon the other hand, 
Captain Pouchot stipulated the surrender of all the stores, provisions 
and arms, with which the garrison had been well supplied. 

The French that capitulated in the fort, numbered over GOO ; be- 
side them, were the prisoners taken in the battle upon the river. 
Not less than ten commissioned officers were among the prisoners, 
of whom were the gallant D'Aubrey, Captain Pouchot, and two 
half-breed sons of Joncaire. In marching out and embarking in 
batteux, it was with difficulty they were saved frojn massacre by 
the R-oquois ; and only saved by the conciliatory course of Sir 
William Johnson, and the promise to his turbulent allies of a liberal 
participation in the spoils of victory; a promise that be fulfilled.* 

In a few days, after holding an Indian council to further promote 



* A letter, written from the spot soon after the surrender, preserved in some old 
newspaper files, states that the Indian allies were allowed all the plunder in the fort, 
save the arms and ammunition. Some of them, it is stated, obtained, individually, 
plunder to the value of £300. Among the plunder, were large quantities of French 
hatchets, stored therefor Indian trade and presents; the same that are even now occa- 
sionally uncovered by the plough, in different localities in this region. 

Note. — It has been trathfully said, that the last French and English war, was the 
school of the Kevolution. Washington first unsheatlied his sword at the battle of t!ie 
Great Meadows, and won his first laurels at Braddock's defeat. Putnam was at Ticon.- 
derOga ; Gates and Morgan were at Braddock's defeat ; Stark was a youno- officer in 
a coi-ps of Provincial Rangers; George Clinton, it has been asserted, bore a commis- 
sion among the Frovincials, in the siege of Niagara ; and there are other names, after- 
wards rendered illustrious, mingled in different accounts of the campaigns a-^'ainst 
Crown Point, Ticouderoga, Quebec, and Niagara. ° 



56 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

and strengthen the alliance of the Iroquois, and detaching a suffi- 
cient force to repair and occupy the captured fort, Sir William 
Johnson, with his main force and his prisoners, departed for 
Oswego. 



CHAPTER III 



SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA, CROWN POIN'l, aUEBEC, AND 
MONTREAL PEACE OF 1763 END OF FRENCH DOMINION. 



While all this was transpiring, war was waging with equal vigor, 
if not with as signal success, upon the banks of the St. Lawrence, 
and upon the Northern Lakes. On the 22d of July, the main army 
under General Amherst, arrived at Ticonderoga ; and, opening a 
heavy fire upon the French out-posts, compelled them to retire 
within the walls of the fort, leaving their heavy breast- works to 
shelter the besiegers from a brisk fire they poured out from the 
strong-hold to which they had retreated. The siege and stout re- 
sistance continued until late in the night of the 23d, when the 
French, warned by the formidable preparations the besiegers were 
making, withdrew their main force to Crown Point, leaving but 
400 to mark their retreat. Seldom, perhaps, in war's annals, has 
an unequal force — a handful against a powerful array — so much 
annoyed besiegers, as did these 400 gallant Frenchmen, left, as it 
would almost seem, for a sacrifice. In the daikness of the night, a 
detachment of them went from the fort, and stealthily approached 
the English in their entrenchments ; breaking them up, and for a 
brief space, creating confusion and dismay. They held out in the 
fort for the two succeeding days, annoying the besiegers in their 
entrenchments, by a continued well-directed fire. On the nigiit of 
the 26th, the small force, perceiving that the English had planted 
themselves strongly within six hundred yards of the fort — that 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 5T 

longer resistance would be unavailing — blew up their magazines, 
fired their wooden breast- works, barracks and store-houses ; made a 
wreck of their fortress for the besiegers to occupy, and secured a 
safe retreat, uninterrupted but by a pursuit across the Lake, and 
the capture of 16 of their number. At daylight, on the morning 
of the 27th, the French flag was struck down, and the English flag 
raised, amid smoke and flames, devastation and ruin, that the torch 
and lusee of the gallant, but despairing Frenchmen, had left for the 
destruction of works their valor could not save. 

The first work of Gen. Amherst was the repairing of the dilapi- 
dated fortress ; and in the mean time some naval armament was per- 
fected necessary to carrying his conquest further on, to Crown 
Point. He was soon however, informed that that post was aban- 
doned, and that the enemy had retreated to Aux Nois, at the lower 
end of Lake Champlain. On the 4th of August, he advanced with 
his main army, to the last deserted French post. M. de Bourlemagne, 
who commanded the French lorces in that quarter, seemed govern- 
ed by the policy of retarding as far as possible, the advance of the 
English force, whose ultimate destination he was well aware, was 
Quebec ; and their errand there, to aid the besiegers in the reduc- 
tion of that strong hold, and last hope, of his king and country upon 
this continent. At Aux Nois, where he had made his stand, he had 
yet an effective force of 3,.000 men; 100 pieces of cannon; and a 
force of armed vessels, which gave him command of the Lake. 
The English rested at Crown Point, engaging actively however, in 
strengthening their feeble naval armament ; occasionally sending 
out small scouting parties ; and preparing in all things, for breaking 
up the French in their plan of retreat. On the 10th of October, 
the army under Gen. Amherst were embarked, and after an ineffec- 
tual attempt to reach their destination, in consequence of high winds 
and storms, were obliged to seek shelter in a bay, upon the western 
shore of the lake, and remain there for seven days. On the 18th, 
the troops were again embarked, and after encountering another 
gale, fell back to Crown Point. The season was now far advanced 
— the rigors of winter, in a bleak northern region, had began seri- 
ously to impair the ability and energy of the troops. These con- 
siderations, allied to the probability that he could not reach Quebec 
until the contest there was decided, induced Gen. Amherst to post- 
pone further offensive operations to a more propitious season. 



58 PHELPS AND GOPJIAm's PUECHASE. 

The English squadron, destined for Quebec, had set sail about 
the middle of February. The command of this expedition was 
conferred by Mr, Pitt, upon James Wolf; .the youngest man th-at 
had ever borne the commission of Major General in the British 
army ; yet, he was selected for by far the most difficult service that 
the war involved. The naval command was conferred upon Admiral 
Saunders. The expedition arrived at Halifax, towards the close of 
the month of April. The force destined to act upon land under 
Wolf, was over 8,000. From the first landing upon the American 
coast, the British Admiral had anticipated the arrival of a convoy 
from France, destined for supplies and men, and had watched to in- 
tercept it, but it had eluded his vigilance and reached Quebec. 

It was not until the 27th of June that the imposing force had 
reached the Island of Orleans, a few leagues below Quebec, and 
disembarked. A recent historian* has thus eloquently described 
the English commander's first view of Quebec, and the task that lay 
before him : — " Accompanied by the chief engineer. Major M. Kel- 
ler, and an escort of light infantry, he pushed on to the extremity 
of the Island nearest to Quebec. A magnificent but-disheartening 
scene lay before him. On the summit of the highest eminence ; on 
the straits of the great river from whence the basin before him open- 
ed, the French flag waved. The crest of the rocky height was 
crowned with formidable works redoubted and planked. On every 
favorable spot, above, below, on the rugged assent, were batteries 
bristelling with guns. This strong-hold formed the right flank of a 
position eight miles in extent ; the falls and the deep and rapid stream 
of the Montmorency, was the left. The shoals and rocks of the 
St. Lawrence protected the broad front, and the rich vallies of the 
St. Charles, with the prosperous and beautiful villages of Charles- 
burg, and Beauport, gave shelter and hospitality in the rear. A 
crested bank of some height over the great river, marked the main 
line of defences from east to west, parapets planked at every favor- 
able spot, aided their natural strength. Crowding on this embattled 
bank, swarming in the irregular village streets, and formed in mass- 
es on the hills beyond, were 12,000 French and Canadian troops, 
led by the gallant Montcalm." 

The scenes that followed — all the details of that protracted and 

* A\itlior of Conquest of Canada. 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PUECH.^E. 59 

eventful siege — form prominent pages in our general history. It 
would be but repeating that with which most readers are familiar, 
to give them a place in these local annals. 

The siege commenced on the 29th of June, and lasted with but 
brief intermissions, until the 18th day of September. Upon that 
memorable day the French, after a gallant resistance — a holding out 
almost unparalelled, considered in reference to time and the fierce 
and frequent approaches they had to resist — surrendered the great 
citadel of their strength in America ; the Gibraltar upon which 
they had fallen back in other days of untoward events ; the spot 
they had occupied since Champlain chose it in 1608, as the seat 
and centre of French colonization. 

The American reader has been surfeited, through English sources 
principally, with accounts of the bravery, the skill and the fortitude, 
of the besiegers and conquerors of Quebec. The story of the gal- 
lant Wolf, the mild, unassuming and amiable commander ; in whose 
character there is mixed up the finest sensibilities of our nature ; 
child like simplicity, with as stern heroism as Britain can boast in 
her long catalogue of mihtary conquerors ; his almost shout of tri- 
umph, when the news reached him that the enemy w^as yielding, 
even when the film of death was upon his eyes, just as his noble 
spirit was about to take its flight far away from worldly conflict ; — 
has become as familiar as house-hold words. But little has been 
said, or known, in our language, of the brave defenders of the be- 
sieged citadel ; and of him especially, the gallant but unfortunate 
Montcalm; whose end was as glorious as that of his conqueror; 
though no shouts of victory cheered him upon his entrance into the 
dark valley of death. 

A recent English historian,* has in this respect, set an example 
of magnanimity ; and to his pages are we indebted for much that is 
new in all that concerned the defence of Quebec. From the mo- 
ment the English had obtained a footing upon the Island of Orleans, 
the French commander was like a noble stag at bay. Confronted 
by a powerful force, chafed and harrassed in his preparation for de- 
fence ; distrustful as the result proved he had reason to be, of the 
courage and counsels of the Governor, Vaudreuil, who had an 
immediate command of the Canadian militia ; his courage was that 

* Author of "Conquest of Canada." 



60 PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

of desperation: — restive, impulsive, chivalric, to a fault. Forget- 
ful of superiority of rank, he said to Vaudreuil, in reference to some 
policy he had pursued : " You have sold your country, but while 
I live I will not surrender it up." Of the provincial troops, he wrote, 
on the eve of battle : " My Canadians without discipline, deaf to 
the sound of the drum, and badly armed, nothing remains for them 
but to fly ; and behold me beaten without resources. But one thing 
I can assure you, I shall not survive the probable loss of the colony. 
There are times when a general's only resource is to die with honor ; 
this is such a time. No stain shall rest upon my memory. But in 
defeat and death there is consolation left. The loss of the colony 
will one day be of more value to my country, than a victory. The 
conqueror shall here find a tomb ; his aggrandizement shall prove 
his ultimate ruin."* 

Never did the general of an army, or the defender of a citadel 
have more upon his hands. There was disaffection among the 
militia to conciliate ; desertion to prevent ; a scanty and bad supply 
of provisions to obviate, with but feeble prospects of obtaining new 
supplies ; an unreaped harvest wasting in the fields, for the preser- 
vation of which he was obliged to spare 2,000 of his men at a crit- 
ical moment ; the supply of ammunition was scanty ; the vigorous 
and almost incessant prosecution of the seige, left him with little 
of that confidence which is essential to efficient action. His co- 
operator, and superior, (Vaudreuil,) was but a clog upon his move- 
ments. Yet he manfully and heroically contended against impend- 
ing and fearfully foreshadowed fate, lie compelled obedience to 
his orders by iron rules and summary inflictions of severe penalties ; 
inspired by his determined impetuous bearing, terror, where duty 
and courage failed or flagged ; nioved from point to point issuing 
his orders ; here to repair a breach, there to prevent desertion ; and 
there, to push forward attacking columns. 

" I am safe," said he on the 12th of September, "unless Wolf lands 
above the town." Even then, there was a movement with the Brit- 
ish force to gain the position, from the possession of which he had 
impliedly foretold his ruin. 



* There is some difficulty in determining to what event this looked forward : — If 
to defeat and expulsion from the region the Enghsh were conquering, it has not been 
realized. If it meant that the war that was then waging would pave the way to the 
loss of most of the American Colonies, it was singularly and truthfully prophetic. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 61 

While he was listening to the sound of cannon from an unexpec- 
ted quarter, a horseman came to him in full speed, and announced 
that the English were occupying the plains of Abraham. He 
aroused a sleeping and wearied soldiery, and by prompt action had 
them soon hurrying in long lines over the valley of the St. Charles 
to the battle ground. Incredulous at first, that the besiegers had 
ventured and succeeded in gaining the rugged ascent — almost be- 
lieving it a feint; — when convinced of its reality he nerved him- 
self for the decisive contest which he knew had come. The hour 
of conflict found him at the head of his army ; as Wolf was of his. 
Where danger was most imminent, he was to be found ; flying from 
column to column, inspiring confidence by his presence and infusing 
into his ranks, a desperate courage that England's veteran troops had 
no where before contended with. At one moment, simultaneously al- 
most, as if each charge was exploded by an electric circuit, came a 
volley from the drawn up columns of the British lines. The French 
were swept down like forest trees before a whirlwind. Upon this 
hand, fell his second in command, upon the other, one of his bravest 
generals ; the day and the battle, the citadel and an Empire was al- 
ready lost ; and yet Montcalm was undismayed. Recoiling from 
the shock, like hardened steel that has been bent almost to breaking, 
again he collected his scattered forces and presented a bold front 
to the enemy. Then came another terrible fire from the British 
lines, and with it a charge, such as has but few parallels in the his- 
tories of battles. Overcome, trampled down, yielding and flying in 
every direction, was the whole French force. Amid this scene of 
death and carnage, Montcalm died as he had hoped he should ; 
wh«n- h& CGuld no longer resist the march of the invader. He fell 
mortally wounded at the head of his troops, that he was in vain at- 
tempting to rally and make stand firm, in the face of a fire and a 
charge, incessant and desperate. When the surgeon had examined 
his wound, he told him it was mortal. " I am glad of it," said he, 
" how long can I survive ? " " Perhaps a day, perhaps less," was 
the reply of the surgeon. " So much the better," replied Montcalm, 
" I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." It is given on 
the atuhority of a British officer, who was present at the siege of 
Quebec, that Montcalm, in his last moments, paid a high compliment 
to his conquerors ; and at the same time bitterly reflected upon his 
own troops. That he said : " If I could survive this wound, I would 



62 PHELPS AND GOEIIAm's PUECHASE. 

engage to beat three times the number of such forces as I comman- 
ded this morning, with a third of their number of British troops." 

The siege continued. On the 17th, when the British fleet had 
prepared to attack the lower town, and 118 guns were mounted up- 
on the British batteries, ready to open a fire, there came from the 
besieged city a stipulation to surrender, if no reinforcements cam-e 
before the next morning. This was in anticipation of the arrival 
of French troops from Montreal that had been ordered down. In the 
mean time, Vaudreuil had retreated with his immediate command at 
Montmorency, as had also another large division of the French 
army, under De Bougainville, that had been posted at another point. 
They retired to Port aux Trembles. When the Governor of Mon- 
treal came down and joined them, it was agreed to send encoura- 
ging words to M. de Ramsay, the Governor of Quebec, urging him 
to hold out against the siege. The courier reached the besieged city 
on the day — the 18th of September — in the morning of which it 
had surrendered. 

The English army took possession of Quebec, and the French 
arm.y retired to Three Rivers and Montreal. Thus ended the 
campaign in that quarter, for the season of 1759. Its results had 
been the conquest of Quebec, Crown Point, Ticonderoga, and 
Niagara. Occupying these vantage grounds, the English may 
well be supposed to have surmounted the most formidable barriers 
against the complete success of the campaign; yet, on the part of 
the French colonists, the stake they were contending for, was too 
large — the issue was too momentous — to admit of entire surrender, 
as long as there was the least chance of winning. 

M. de Levi, the Governor of Montreal, had succeeded Montcalm 
as commander-in-chief. The French army, during the winter of 
1759, '60, had been reinforced by six thousand militia, and a large 

Note. — The author of the "Conquest of Canada," says: — "Under some mysteri- 
ous and incomprehensible impulse, Montcalm at once determined to meet his danger- 
ous enemy in the open field. To account for this extraordinary resolution, is impossi- 
ble. Had the French General thrown himself into Quebec, he might have securely 
defied his assailants from behind its ramparts, till winter drove them away. But a 
short time before, he had recorded his deliberate conviction, that he could not face tlie 
British army in a general engagement. He was '^eU. aware that all the eflbrts of hi.s 
indefatigable enemy had been tlu-oughout exerted to bring on an action upon any 
terms : and yet, at length, on an open plain, without even waiting for his artillery, 
unaided by any advantage of position, he threw the rude Canadian niihtia against tlie 
veterans of England. Once, and once only, in a successful and illusti'ious career, did 
this gallant Frenchman forget his wisdom and his military skiD. But that one tremen- 
dous eiTor led him to defeat and death.' 



PHELPS AND GOEHAil's PURCHASE. 63 

body of Indians. In April, as soon as the upper portion of the St. 
Lawrence was open enough to admit of the transportation of 
his artillery, heavy baggage, and military stores, M. de Levi re- 
solved upon a descent and an attempt to re-conquer Quebec. It 
was a rash attempt, but he relied much upon the effects a cold win- 
ter had had in reducing and enfeebling the British force, that had 
been left at Quebec ; and in fact, shut up as they had been, but 
scantily supplied with salt provisions, death and disability had fear- 
fully thinned their ranks. The defence had devolved upon Gen. 
Murray. On the morning of the 27th of April, M. de Levi had 
posted his strong force within three miles of Quebec. The British 
General, fully aware that investment, for any considerable period, in 
the condition of his army, would be equally as fatal as defeat, re- 
solved to follow the example of Montcalm. His unequal force was 
marched out, and an attack commenced. After a desperate fight, 
and the loss, in killed and wounded, of nearly one-third of his army, 
he retired within the walls. M. de Levi followed up his success, 
approaching and strongly entrenching ; the lost citadel was apparent- 
ly within his grasp, when a small, but efficient English fleet came 
up the St. Lawrence, and made quick work in destroying and cap- 
turing the whole French armament ; a new spirit was infused in the 
English camp ; and M. de Levi, with hopes so suddenly crushed, 
made a hasty retreat at the sacrifice of his guns, amunition, stores, 
and entrenching tools. Thus ended an expedition that the chagrined 
Canadians stigmatized as " de Levi's folly." 

On his way to Niagara, Prideux had left Col. Haldimand in com- 
mand at Oswego. On the 4th of July, the fort was besieged by a 
large force of Canadian militia and Indians, under the command of 
M. de la Corne. A surprise was attempted and failed, the garrison, 
being forewarned, was ready for their reception, and opened a fire 
upon the besiegers, which compelled a dispersion. An attempt to 
burn the English boats in the harbor failed, and the besiegers re- 
crossed the Lake. 

The English opened the campaign in 1760, to complete their con- 
quest. Early in May, Gen. Amherst had collected a large force at 
Oswego. Two armed vessels succeeded in forcing all the French 
armament upon the Lake to take refuge among the " Thousand 
Isles." The army at Oswego consisted of over 10,000; allied to 
which, were 700 Indians that Sir William Johnson had brought into 



64 

the field. The main army under Gen. Amherst, went down the 
Lake, and the St. Lawrence; a detachment under Col. Haviland 
going via Lake Champlaln to Crown Point, to be joined by the force 
stationed there. The first point of attack was the small garrison 
upon Isle Royal, commanded by captain Pouchot. That surrender- 
ed after a spirited resistance. Here the Indian allies mostly deser- 
ted, or marched off in a body, chagrined at Amherst and Johnson's 
refusal to allow them to massacre the whole French garrison, as 
they had intended. After a perilous passage down the St. Lawrence, 
in which 80 men and 60 boats were lost, Amherst's army landed 
nine miles from Montreal on the 6th of September. Murray, with 
all his disposable force, had left Quebec and sailed up the St. Law- 
rence on the 14th of June. As an evidence how stiong, was yet 
the attachment of the Canadians to the French interests — even in 
this hour where there was little hope, it is mentioned that Murray's 
force was constantly annoyed by guerrilla attacks from the banks of 
the river, as they ascended. After a slow passage, delayed in expect- 
ation of being joined by fresh troops from England, the squadron 
reached the Island of Montreal on the 7th of September, and were 
disembarked. Col. Haviland having come down Lake Champlain, 
captured the post at Isle Aux Nois, to which the French had re- 
treated before Amherst, the previous season, was near at hand, and 
reached the Island on the 8th. 

Under Amherst, Murray and Haviland, there was now an 
English force of 16,000 efiective troops. With but little delay, in 
view of so formidable an army of besiegers, M de Vaudreuil surren- 
dered Montreal and signed articles of capitulation, which included, 
all of Canada, western New York, and to the extent of the French 
claims at the west. 

If any thing excused the French Governor, Vaudreuil, for so sud- 
den a surrender, it was the favorable terms he exacted from the be- 
siegers, which were conceded to, as a better alternative, than the 
shedding of more blood, of which the banks of the St. Lawrence, 
and the shores of the Lakes, had already seen enough to satiate the 
most morbid desire for human sacrifice, in the respective countries 
to which the thousands of victims owed allegiance. The foreign 
French troops ; the civil officers, their families and baggage ; were 
to be sent home in English vessels; the troops under parol, to serve 
no more durina; the war. The militia were allowed to return to 



PHELPS Am) GORIIAM's PURCHASE. 65 

their homes. The French colonists were to enjoy the same privi- 
leges and immunities as British subjects. The Indians that had ad- 
hered to the French interests, were to be unmolested, and disturbed 
in no right they had enjoyed under French dominion. 

Thus terminated French dominion upon this continent, which 
had existed for a century and a half. How badly was all that time 
improved ! The sympathies which are naturally excited by a peru- 
sal of all the details of the final contest ; the misfortunes and casual- 
ties, we may well call them, that one after another baffled the arms 
of France, and paralized the arms of as brave men as were ever 
trained in her armies ; shutting them up in fortresses ; closing the 
avenues by which succor could reach them, with ice and snow, or 
adverse winds; cutting off reinforcements in their march of relief; 
disease prostrating them, and famine staring them in the face, while 
hosts of armed men were thundering at their gates, and their strong 
walls were swaying and trembling over their heads ; are in a mea° 
sure abated by the reflection, that they so long held dominion over 
as fine a region as arms ever conquered, or enterprise ever reach- 
ed, and were so unmindful of the value of their possession. An 
occupancy of five generations, and how little did it leave behind of 
its impress ! How little was done for France ! how little for man- 
kind ! 

There was in Canada, (East,) the two considerable cities of 
Quebec and Montreal, and a few small villages upon the St. Law- 
rence. In their vicinities, upon the most favorable soils, there was 
an agricultural population, but little more than supplying their own 
food. In Canada, (West,) but a small garrison at Frontenac, (Kings- 
ton,) with a little agricultural improvement in its immediate neigh- 
borhood; a small trading station at Toronto; and a few missionary 
and trading stations in the interior, and upon Lake Huron. In 
western New York, the valley of the Lakes, and the upper vallies 
of the Mississippi, over all of which the French claimed dominion, 
there was but fur trading and missionary stations ; with few excep- 
tions of agricultural enterprise ; by far the most considerable of 
which, was upon a narrow strip upon the Detroit river. 

There is much that is admirable in the French Missionary enter- 
prize in all the region they occupied. The world has no where 
seen as much of devotion, of self-sacrifice, of courage, perseverance 
and endurance. A host ot gifted men who had left the highest 



66 PHELPS A]S[D GOEHAMS PUECHASE. 

walks of civilization and refinement, which they had helped to 
adorn, took up their abode in the wilderness, in rude huts ; here and 
there, upon the banks of lakes and rivers, where there were none 
of even the foot prints of civilization, save their own. Solitary and 
alone, they wrestled with the rude savage ; displayed the cross, 
the eaibleni of salvation, to his wondering gaze, and disarmed his 
fierce resentments by mild persuasion ; adapting themselves to his 
condition, and inducting him into the sublime mysteries of a re- 
ligion of peace and universal brotherhood. Each missionary was 
a wanderer: — ice, snow, swollen streams, winds and tempests, 
summer's heats and winter's chills, were to him no hindrances, when 
duty and devotion urged him onward. Inured to toil and priva- 
tion, a small parcel of parched corn and a bit of jerked beef, would 
be his only sustenance in long journeys through the forests, seeking 
new fields of missionary labor. Often were they martyrs — there 
are few localities in all the vast region they traversed, where one or 
more of them did not yield up his life as an earnest of his faith. — 
As often as they perished by the tomahawk, the rigors of the cli- 
mate, exposure, fatigue or disease, their ranks were supplied. Like 
disciplined soldiers, the Jesuit missionaries, one after anat her, would 
fill ranks, the vacancy of which would admonish them of danger. 
And where are now the evidences of all these lang years of mis- 
sionary cnterprize, zeal and martyrdom ? In the small villages of 
Western New York, which now contain remnants of the once 
powerful Iroquois, there is the form of the cross in their silver or- 
naments, and around the western Lakes and Rivers, the traveller 
may see in addition to this, occasionally, a rude cross, over an Indian 
grave. This is all that is left, save written records, to remind us of 
that extraordinary, long continued, missionary advent- All else 
faded away with the decline of French power. The good mission- 
ary, worn out in the service, either rested from his labors under the 
mould of the forests he had penetrated, or retired when the flag of 
his country no longer gave him confidence and protection. The 
treaty of 17G3 forbid any recruits of his order. In his absence, 
his simple neophytes soon forgot his teachings. The symbols of 
his faith no longer reminded them of the "glad tidings" he had 
proclaimed. Tradition even of his presence, has become obscure. 
Never perhaps, was rejoicing in England, as universal and enthu- 
siastic, as when the news of the conquest of Quebec — the con- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECmVSE. 67 

quest of Canada as it was rightly construed — reached there. 
High expectations of the value and importance of the French pos- 
sessions had been raised ; and hatred of the French had become a 
universal public sentiment. A series of defeats and misfortunes 
that had previously attended the British arms in this quarter; in the 
war then waging, had disposed the people of England to make the 
most of victories when they finally came. A public thanksgiving 
was proclaimed, pageants upon land and water succeeded, with 
bonfires and illuminations. The victory was the' theme of the press 
and the pulpit, of the poet and the player. Mingled with all this, 
was mourning for the brave men that had perished in the long suc- 
cession of conflicts, or rather the reverse of the picture, was the 
funeral pageant, the widow's and the orphan's tears, the hearths 
made desolate. When the remains of the lamented Wolf were 
carried home and conveyed to Greenwich cemetry, there was a 
solemn and imposing hiatus in the national jubilee ; — but that over, 
England became again joyous in view of an immense accession of 
empire, and the triumph of its armies. 

We know how well it is ordered for us, as individuals, that a 
curtain is drawn between the present and the future ; that our pres- 
ent happiness is unalloyed by any taste of the bitter drugs that are 
concealed even in the cup of bliss. So with nations, if they could 
always see the tendency and the end of events, there would have 
been less rejoicing at the triumphs of arms. How would it have 
appalled England ; how would her King, her Statesmen, sitting un- 
der triumphal arches, or holding saturnalias at festive boards, have 
been affrighted and dismayed, if some prophetic hand had inscribed 
upon their walls: — ''You have gained a Province and lost an 
Empire ! " 

And such was the destiny ; — crowding into a brief space^ the 
cause and the effect, the triumph and its consequences. Illy fitted 
for the great task that was before them, would the feeble colonies 
have been, at the commencement of the Revolution, in the absence 
of the apprenticeship in the trade of war, that the last French and 
English war upon this continent afibrded. What better discipline- 
could men have had ; what better experience, to inure them to toil,, 
privation and danger, than was had in the expeditions to the Ghio: 
and the Allegany, the siege of Louisburg, Quebec, Montreal, 
Crown Point and Niagara? Every campaign was a school far 



68 PHELPvS AOT) GORHAm's PUECHASE. 

better than West Point and Annapolis. Mingled in all these were 
the colonists of New York and New England, New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Out of the ranks of those retired 
armies, came a host of the efficient men, who, upon the breaking out 
of the Revolution, so well convinced their military instructors of 
the proficiency they had made under their tuition. The military 
skill and genius necessary to organize armies, the courage and chiv- 
alry necessary to lead them to triumph, which had been inert, was 
aroused in the stirring scenes of the French war ; its succession 
of splendid triumphs. England had made war a profession with a 
large number of the colonists, little thinking where would be the 
field and what the occasion of its practice. In the prosecution of 
the French war, England had fearfully augmented its public debt ; 
in an hour of evil councils, against the protestations of her wisest 
statesmen, taxation of the colonies was added to the burthens, the 
privations and sufferings that had borne so heavily upon them. 
And it may be added, that a handful of feeble colonies would hardly 
have ventured to strike a blow for separation, as long as the French 
held dominion here. Independence achieved, the colonies would 
necessarily have had to assume the relative condition that England 
bore with France. They would have assumed England's quarrels, 
growing out of unsettled boundaries and disputed dominions. 

Had there been no English conquest of French dominions, the 
separation of the colonies, if realized at all, would have been an 
event far removed from the period in which it was consummated. 
France surrendered her splendid possessions in America, sullenly 
and grudgingly, yielded to destiny and a succession of untoward 
events, hoping for some event — some "tide in the affairs of men," 
that would wrest from England's Crown the bright jewel she had 
picked up on the banks of the St. Lawrence, bathed in blood ; and 
which she was displaying with a provoking air of triumph. It 
came more speedily than the keenest eye of prophecy could have 
foreseen. In a little more than twenty years after the fall of Que- 
bec, La Fayette, Rochambeau, Chastelleux, D'Estang, M. de Choisy, 
Viomenil, de Grasse, M. de St. Simon, and a host of gallant French- 
men beside, saw the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown ; an 
event as crowning and decisive, in the loss of an empire, as was 
the surrender of Quebec, in the loss of a colony. 



PHELPS AKD GORHAJyi's PUECIIASE. 69 



CHAPTER IV. 



ENGLISH DOMINION BORDER WARS OF THE REVOLUTION. 



From the end of French dominion in Western New York, to 
the close of the Revokition, constituted a period of twenty-four 
years; the events of which, having an immediate bearing upon our 
local region, must be crowded into a space too limited for elaborate 
detail; allowing of but little more than what is necessary to pre- 
vent a break in the chain of events that leads us to the main de- 
sign of the work in hand. 

Little of historical interest occurred previous to the Revolution. 
The English would seem to have made no better use of the rich 
prize that the fortunes of war had thrown into their hands, than had 
their French predecessors. Settlements made the advance of but 
a day's walk, and occupancy in any form, west of the lower valley 
of the Mohawk, was but the fortresses of Oswego and Niagara, and 
small Enghsh trading establishments, that had succeeded those of 
the French. The rich soil, that has made this region the prosper- 
ous home of hundreds of thousands; in which lay dormant the 
elements of more enduring wealth than would have been the rich- 
est " placers " of California, had no attractions for their adventur- 
ers, and were without the narrow circle of enterprize that bound- 
ed the views of colonial governors and legislators. 

The change of occupants does not seem to have pleased the 
Senecas. Scarcely had the English got a foothold in their coun- 
ty, before a war was commenced by an attack upon a British 
wagon-train and its guard, as they were passing over the Portage 
from Lewiston to Schlosser. A tragical event that has much 
prominence in the local reminiscences of that region. This was 
followed by an attack upon a detachment of British soldiers at 
Black Rock, on their way from Niagara to Detroit. Sir William 
Johnson, in his official correspondence, called the Senecas a "trou- 
blesome people," 



70 PHELPS AISTD GOKHAm's PUECHASE. 

All of English dominion west of Albany, other than its military 
posts, was a " one man power :" and before proceeding farther, it 
will be necessary to give some account of that one man, who has 
a'readv, incidentally, been introduced in our narrative. 



SIR WILLIAM JOHXSOX. 



He was a native of Ireland, of a good family, and was well edu- 
cated. Soon after he became of age, in 1737 or '8, he came to 
America as the land agent of his uncle, Sir Peter Warren, an Ad- 
miral in the English navy, who had acquired a considerable tract of 
land upon the Mohawk, in the present county of JMontgomery. He 
located a few miles from the present village of Port Jackson. Of a 
romantic disposition, and having acquired, from the unsuccessful 
termination of a love affair in his native country, some distaste for 
civilized society, which he \vas well qualified to adorn, he had not 
been long a resident in the backwoods of America, when he had 
determined upon permament settlement. He formed an exception 
to a large majority of his countymen, in the ease and facility with 
which he exchanged the refinements of civilized society for life in 
the woods, with few but the native Indians for neighbors or associ- 
ates. No Frenchman ever sit himself down upon the borders of 
our western lakes, alone of all his race, in the midst of Indian wig- 
wam?, and sooner merged and blended himself with all about him. 
Says the London Gentleman's Magazine, (1755) : — " Besides his 
skill and experience as an officer, he is particularly happy in making 
himself beloved by all sorts of people, and can conform to all com- 
panies and conversations. He is very much the fine gentleman in 
genteel company. But as the inhabitants next to him are mostly 
Dutch, he sits down with them and smokes his tobacco, drinks flip, 
and talks of improvements, bear and beaver skins. Being surround- 
ed with Indians, he speaks several of their languages well, and has 
always some of them with him. He takes care of their wives and 
old Indians, when they go out on parties, and even wears their 
dress. In short, by his honest dealings with them in trade, and his 
courage, which has often been successfully tried with them, and his 
courteous behavior, he has so endeared himself to them, that they 
chose him one of their chief Sachems, or Princes, and esteem him 
as their father." 



PHELPS AND GOPJIAM's PURCHASE. Yl 

He was just the man the English government required in the 
contest they were waging with the French; and he had not been 
long in the Mohawk valley, before he became its Indian agent, and 
the dispenser of its gifts, which added to his personal popularity 
with the Indians, gave him an influence over them greater than 
any one of our own race has ever possessed. He was the first 
Englishman to contend, with any great measure of success, with 
French Indian diplomacy ; their governors, missionaries and tra- 
ders. 

On the breaking out of the last English and French war upon 
this continent, he was made a General of colonial militia, and by 
virtue of a leadership that had been created by the Iroquois, he was 
head warrior of all of them that inclined to the English interests. 
His first military service, was to head the formidable expedition 
against Crown Point, in which he was the vanquisher of the Baron 
Dieskeu. For this signal service, he was made a Baronet. The 
other prominent event in his military career, was the siege and con- 
quest of Fort Niagara, which mainly devolved upon him, by the 
death of his superior in command. Gen. Prideaux. 

The gifts of his sovereign, and the facilities he enjoyed for pur- 
chasing Indian lands, made him the possessor of great wealth, which, 
with his military honors, the partiality of his countrymen, and his 
great influence with the Indians, rendered him as near a Prince as 
any thing the backwoods of America have witnessed. * 

After the close of the French war, as a British agent, he held 
treaties and negotiated with the Iroquois, and some of the western 
nations, all of the territorial acquisitions in middle New York, north- 
ern Pennsylvania, and upon the Ohio River, that was made pre- 



*"He built two spacious and convenient residences on the Mohawk River, known 
afterwardsas Johnson Castle and Johnson Hall. The Hall was his summer residence. 
Heretliis singular man lived like a little sovereign, kept an excellent table for strangers 
and officers, whom the course of then- duty now led into these wilds; and by con- 
fiding entu-ely in the Indians, and treating them with unwearied truth and justice 
without even yielding to solicitations he had once refused, he taught them to repose 
entire confidence in him. So perfect was his dependence on those people, whom his 
fortitude and other manly virtues had attached lo him, that when they returned fi-om 
their summer excursions and excliano:ed their last year furs for fire arms, &c., they 
used to pass a few days at the Castle, when Iiis family and most of his domestics were 
down at the Hall. There they were all liberally entertained by Sir WiUiarn , and 500 
of them have been known, for nights together, after drinking pretty freely, to lie 
around him on the ground, while he was the only white person in a house containing 
gi-eat quantities of every thing that was to them valuable or desii-able." — Memoirs of 
an Amencan Lady, 



72 PHELPS AND GOEHAJVl's PURCHASE. 

vious to the Revolution. To his influence with the Indians as a 
British agent, inherited by his family, may be attributed in a great 
measure their alliance with the British throughout the Revolution ; 
and yet had he lived when the contest was waged, it is doubtful 
what would have been his position. There are strong reasons for 
assuming that he would have been at least a neutral. He died at 
Johnson Hall, in June, 1774, just as the storm was gathering, soon 
after he had himself predicted that " England and her colonies were 
approaching a terrible war, which he should never live to witness." 
His health had been for some years declining.* 

In his youth, soon after he became a resident upon the Mohawk, 
he took for his wife, (conventionally,) a comely, German girl, who 
being a redemptionist, was serving her time with one of his neighbors. 
She was the mother of his son and successor. Sir John Johnson, 
and of his daughters, who became the wives of Col. Claus, and Col. 
Guy Johnson, a distant relative of Sir William. A legal marriage 
took place when Sir William was on his deathbed, which ceremony 
had reference to the descent of property. And here it would be 
historical delinquency to conceal the fact, that Sir William, away 
from the restraints of civilized life, had indulged in what Mr. Ban- 
croft would call the "freedom of the backwoods." Ebenezer Allan, 
/ who was at one period, in the valley of the Genesee, what Sir 
William was in the valley of the Mohawk, without taking his many 
virtues as his examples, was but an humble imitator of his one pram- 
inent vice. The fruits of his amours may be traced at this day in 
all the retreats of the remnants of the Six nations. Upon tlie banks 
of the Allegany, the observing traveller will recognize the family 
resemblance in the contour of faces ; the " blood of the Johnsons," 
coursing the veins and harmoniously blending with that of the Iro- 
quois. The sister of Joseph Brant, in some respects as good a speci- 
men of her race, as was her renowned brother, was the mother of 
several of his children who were also legitimatized by a private 
marriage that took place a few years before his death. 



Histories of the Revolution exist in too many forms, are too 
easily accessible to all classes of readers, to make it necessary to em- 

* Documentary History. Vol. 2d. p. 957 ; Col Duncan, to a Friend of Sii- Williams: 
" Yr friend Sir William is sore failed, he is ever now and then in a bad way, wherefore 



PHELPS AND OOEHAm's PUECHASE. T3 

brace even any considerable allusion to it in a work of this charactei*. 
All of it that has any more than a remote connection with the his- 
tory of our local region, are the Border Wars of New York, and 
with them the author will assume that his readers are generally 
familiar. 

On the death of Sir William Johnson, his son, John Johnson, suc- 
ceeded to his titles and estates, and his officer of General Superin- 
tendent of Indian Affairs fell into the hands of Col. Guy Johnson, 
his son-in-law, who had as his deputy Col. Claus, another son-in- 
law. Thus inherited, all the official and personal influence that had 
been acquired was wielded^ against the Colonies and in favor of the 
mother country. The natives unschooled in all that could enable 
them to understand the merits of the quarrel — themselves recog- 
nizing in their simple form of government heriditary rulers — could 
see in the up rising of the Colonies against their King, little else than 
unjustifiable rebellion, and they were told by the Johnsons that the 
outbreaks in Boston, and the battle of Lexington, were the acts of 
disobedient children against the King their Father, who had been 
kind to them as- he had to the Six Nations. Sir William Johnson had 
been the almoner ofannual gifts from his sovereign, and mingling a 
sincere regard for them, with his official duties, had wedded them 
strongly to him and to his government. 

Joseph Brant, (in Indian, Thay-en-da-ga,) had been the protege 
of Sir William Johnson. When quite a youth he had sent him to 
the Rev. Dr. Wheelock's school in Lebanon, Connecticut, after- 
wards employed him in his private business. * Engaged in military 
service, when he took the field, the young chief took the war path, 
one of the leaders of Sir William's Indian allies. Under these cir- 
cumstances it was very natural that Brant should have been found 
a follower of the fortunes of the Jolanson family. 

With those influences bearing upon them, the Six Nations, with 

is thought not to last maiiy years more which will be a great loss to mankind in gen- 
eral, but particularly to this neighborhood, and I don't see that any one of the family 
is capable of keeping up the general applause when he is gone." 

* His nativity is a mooted question. Bishop Strachan of Toronto, in an article 
wi-itten for the Christian Messenger, assumed that he was a Moliawk, born on the Ohio 
river, his pai-ents having eniigra,ted. This is upon the authority of Dr. Stewart, for- 
merly a missioiiaiy in the Mohawk valley ; Col. Stone accredits this. But better au- 
thority than cither, because he has been a far more industrious researcher— L. C. Dra- 
per, Esq., of Philadelphia — assumes that he was a native Cherokee. There were 
Cherokccs in ali the nations of the Iroquois ; captives and theii- descendants. 



74 PHELPS AND GORTIAm's PUKCHASE. 

the exception of a part of the Tuscaroras and Oneidas, were the firm 
allies of England throughout the war of the Revolution. Immedi- 
ately after the death of Sir William, Guy Johnson renewed allian- 
ces, and as hostilities approached the Mohawk valley, " brightened 
the chain of friendship" with gifts and lavish promises of increased 
patronage from his master, the King. A " committee of safety," 
which was early organized in " Tryon county," were jealous of 
every movement of the Johnsons, and especially those of Guy John- 
son. It would seem, in fact, that he had at first rashly determined to 
maintain his ground, and, for that purpose, under pretence of fear 
of attack from " the rebels," had fortified his house, and drawn 
around it as guards, a formidable body of Indians. This alarmed 
the Tryon county committee, which had been early organized as 
auxiliary to the central committee at Albany. They made re- 
presentations to the Albany committee of all that was going on, 
and in allusion to Johnson's fortified castle and the hostile Indians, 
they say : — " We are, gentlemen, in a worse situation than any part 
of America at present. We have an open enemy before our faces, 
and a treacherous enemy at our backs." They assure the Albany 
committee that they will " neither submit to the acts of Parliament 
nor Col. Johnson's arbitrary conduct." 

A series of stirring local events followed : — The Johnson family 
closely allied in interest and friendship with other influential fami- 
lies of Tryon county, not only controlled the Indians, but had such 
an influence with the whites as almost to enable them to coerce 
local obedience to them, and fealty to the King. They even 
ventured, and partially were successful, in using the civil authori- . 
ties of Tryon county to subserve these purposes; interfering in one 
or two instances in breaking up what they termed "rebel meetings." 

Early in the summer of 1775 however, Guy Johnson had deter- 
mined that his own safety and the interests of his King, would both 
be promoted by removal to Canada. Up to this time, he had relied 
upon hopes that the revolutionary movements were but temporary 
outbreaks, which would be suppressed by the strong arm of his 
government, or conciliated by a redress of some of the grievances 
complained of. But admonished by the dark clouds of war that 
were gathering, that the crisis had arrived, that he could not preserve 
where he was with safety, a position even of neutrality, he resolved 
upon placing himself in a position to take an active part in the con- 



PHELPS AND GOEIIAm's PUECHASE. 75 

test. Under the pretence that he could better control the Indians, 
and keep them from harming the inhabitants by fixing his iiead- 
quarters at Fort Stanwix, he left " Guy Park " and repaired to that 
post, where he was soon joined by John and Walter Butler, Brant, 
and a formidable body of Tories and Indians. He soon removed 
with most of his retinue to Oswego. 

It should here be observed, that inured to war as had been the 
Iroquois — fond of it as would seem from the avidity with which 
they had engaged in it with their own race and ours — the breaking 
out of the Revolution, found them with somewhat altered inclina- 
tions. Vastly reduced by wars with the southern and western 
Indians, and with the French, the remnant of them that had enjoy- 
ed a few years of peace had learned in some degree to estimate its 
value. Fully realizing the consequences, should they take up the 
hatchet for the King, the local committees of safety for Tryon and 
Albany counties, held conferences with the Mohawks and received 
assurances of neutrality. In June, 1776, General Schuyler, appoint- 
ed for that purpose by the Congress at Philadelphia, held a council 
with all of the Six Nations upon the German Flats, where assur- 
ances of neutrality were renewed. But the superior influences that 
have been spoken of, finally prevailed. 

Guy Johnson soon repaired to Montreal, where he made his 
head quarters, and engaged with zeal and activity, in enlisting the 
Indians in a harrassing border war, chiefly directed against his old 
neighbors. Sir John Johnson, previous to the flight, or hegira of 
his brother-in-law, had stipulated with Gen. Schuyler that he would 
remain and be a neutral, the chief motive being the preservation of 
the vast estate he had inherited ; but encouraged by the prospect of 
a final triumph of the King over the colonics, he followed his incli- 
nations, violated his pledges of neutrality, and taking with him 
three hundred of his neighbors and dependents, (chiefly Scotch,) 
joined his brother in Montreal, and became like him an active par- 
tizan. The immediate presence of the powerful family was thus 
withdrawn from the Mohawk, and little left of them but their desew 
ted fields and mansions ; but the devoted valley had yet to feel the 
terrible scourge which loyalty could inflict, when sharpened by mo- 
tives of private vengeance. 

Col. John Butler soon fixed his residence on the shores of Lake 
Ontario, in the immediate vicinity of the village of Niagara, where 



% PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCnASE. 

he was soon installed as the leader of the tory refugees. Erecting 
barracks upon the plain, near where Fort George was afterwards 
built, there they were organized and quartered ; and from that point 
they sallied out in marauding expeditions to the vallies of the Mo- 
hawk and Susquehannah, with their Indian alhes ; and to that point 
they returned when their errands of mischief had been executed. 
It was there the expeditions to the devoted valley of Wyoming, and 
to arrest the march of Sullivan, were projected. 

After leaving the Mohawk valley, Brant was alternately at Oswego, 
Niagara, upon the Susquehannah and Genesee Rivers, until July 
1777, when he made his appearance with an armed band of warriors 
at Unadilla, an Indian village upon the Susquehannah. There Gen. 
Herkimer, with a strong guard of Tryon count}^ militia, sought an 
interview with him, in hopes of changing his purpose of engaging 
in the King's service. They met, Brant rather haughtily demanded 
the object of the interview, which was explained. Hinting to Gen. 
Herkimer that his attendants were pretty numerous for a peace 
ambassador, he assured him that he had a superior force, five hundred 
warriors, with which he could crush him and his party at a word ; 
but said he, "we are old neighbors and friends and I will not do it." 
A hot-headed and imprudent Col. Cox, who had accompanied Gen. 
Herkimer, gros.sly insulted Brant, which came near bringing on an 
unequal contest, but Brant hushed the impending storm and promised 
another interview. It was had according to promise ; Brant assur- 
ed the General that he fully understood his errand ; " but" said he, 
" vou are too late, t am already engaged to serve the King. We 
are old friends, I can do no less than to let you return home unmo- 
lested, although you arc entirely within my power." This was the 
last conference held by the agents of Congress with the Indians, 
pending or during the war of the Revolution ; and after this, soon 
followed the terrible scenes with which the author presumes the 
reader to be familiar. 

Immediately following this interview with Brant, Sir John John- 
son and Col. Walter Butler sent out runners and convened delega- 
tions from all of the Six Nations at Oswego. The council was 
opened by a speech from Sir John, in which he assured the Indians 
that their assistance was wanted " to subdue the rebels who had 
taken up arms against their good Father the King, and was about 
to rob him of a great part of his possessions and wealth." The 



11 

chiefs then rose and severally assured the British agents that they 
had only one year before in council with General Schuyler, pledged 
themselves to neutrality, and that they should not violate the pledge 
by taking up the hatchet. The British agents told them that the 
' rebels " were few in number and easily subdued, and that on ac- 
count of their disobedience they fully merited all the punishment that 
white men and Indians united could inflict ; that the King was rich 
and powerful, both in money and subjects ; that his " rum was as 
plenty as the waters of Lake Ontario." This appeal to the appetites 
of the simple natives which British agents had done much before to 
vitiate, accompanied by promises of rich gifts, prevailed, and a treaty 
was made in which they pledge themselves to take up arms against 
the rebels, and continue in service during the war. " Upon the con- 
clusion of the treaty, each Indian was presented with a suit of clothes, 
a brass kettle, a gun, a tomahawk, a scalping knife, a quantity of 
powder and lead, and a piece of gold." * 

In the speech of Cornplanter to the Governor of Pennsylvania, 
in 1822, he said : — " The cause of Indians having been led into sin 
at that time, was, that many of them were in the practice of drink- 
ing and getting intoxicated. Great Britain requested us to join 
them in the conflict against Americans, and promised the Indians 
land and liquor." 

Soon after the war commenced. Brant collected the Mohawks at 
Lewiston, selecting for their home some of the fine grounds on the 
Ridge Road, near the present village. He built a small log church, 
using the bell of one of the Indian churches upon the Mohawk, 
which was hung upon the notch of a tree, the British chaplain at 
Fort Niagara, frequently holding service there. After the Revolu- 
tion, he removed to Brantford, C. W., where large grants of land 
were secured to him by the British government. He died in 1807, 
aged 64 years. 

Col. John Butler, who was respectably connected upon the Mo- 
hawk, became, from the first breaking out of the Revolution, a 

* Life of Mary Jemison. 

Note. — In few things is the poverty of the colonies, when the war commenced, 
more strikingly evinced, than in these Indian negotiations. With a few thousand 
dollars expended in the form of presents, when Gen. Schuyler held his treaty with 
them, their neutrality could have been secured ; but he gave them nothino', for he had 
nothing to give. The British took advantage of this, secured their services, and made 
them a scourge to border settlers of New York and Pennsylvania. 



Y8 PHELPS AND goeham's purchase. 

zealous tory, and fled from his friends and home with the Johnsons, 
fixed his residence at Niagara, as has already been mentioned. 
With the doings of him and his Rangers, the readers of the Revo- 
lutionary history are familiar ; he is connected with some of the 
darkest pages of it. With more of the savage in his nature by far, 
than Brant, he was far ahead of him in acts of cruelty, and incapa- 
ble of the exercise of any of his sterling virtues. He was well 
educated, and his letters and the part he acted in various Indian 
treaties for the sale of the lands of this region, induce the conclu- 
sion, that he had a good share of business talents. At the close of 
the Revolution, he became Superintendent of Indian affaii's for Up- 
per Canada, and was also a half-pay British Colonel. The patron- 
age of a King he had served so devotedly at the sacrifice of the 
private esteem of even those who had been his companions inarms, 
enabled him to surround himself with all the comforts and many of 
the luxuries of life. The home of which he was the founder, even 
now in its neglected condition, exhibits in all its primitive appoint- 
ments, much of cultivated taste and refinement, which it is difficult 
to reconcile with the character of the man, as given to us in the 
annals of Border Wars. He died at Niagara, in 1794. 

The influence of the Johnson family with the Indians, was hard- 
ly less potent than with their white neighbors. No where in all 
the colonies, was there so large a proportionate diversion of the 
inhabitants from an espousal of the Revolution, as in the valley 
of the Mohawk ; and on the other hand, no where were there bet- 
ter examples of patriotism, bravery and self-sacrifice. It was, em- 
phatically, "the dark and bloody ground." At first, the contest 
had all the features of civil war ; households were divided ; it was 
brother against brother, and neighbor against neighbor ; and when, 
after the tories and Indians had withdrawn to Oswego, Montreal, 
Fort Niagara and Canada, they returned from time to time upon 
their errands of blood-shed and rapine ; they were upon familiar 
ground, and well knew where most effectually to direct their steps, 

IfoTK. — In 1791, James Wadsworth visited Niagara, principally to inform himself 
as to tlie prospect of an Indian war. He vn-ote to a friend : — " You will not suppose 
that we are under much fears from the Indians, when I tell you that I started from 
J the Genesee river without company, and readied Niagara in two days, Avitliout any 
~^' difficulty. Butsu-, it was a most sohtaiy ride." "I had an excellent dinner with Col. 
Butler. " We were served with apples, chestnuts, hazel nuts and walnuts ; but what 
Bm-prised me most, was, to sec a plate of raalacatoon peaches as good as I ever saw." 



PHELPS ATO> GOEHAm's PUECHASE. T9 

and where to execute the most terrible mischief. In the retrospect, 
when nations iiave settled down in peace, and look back upon the 
excesses they have committed in the strife and heat of war, there 
is always much even for self-accusation ; but in all the history of 
wars, there is nothing that so stands out in bold relief, without miti- 
gation or excuse, as was the sanguine policy of England in the em- 
ployment of the tomahawk and scalping knife, to aid her in warring 
against her colonies. In all her own dark catalogue of wrongs, in 
the east, at home, in compelling obedience to the thrpne, there is 
nothing that so far outraged humanity, that so far transcended the 
rules of civilized warfare, as was the arming of savage allies, and 
sending them to lay waste unprotected backwoods settlements and 
massacre their inhabitants, without regard to age, condi{ion, or sex. 
What the feeble colonies scorned to do in self-defence — after they 
had determined upon asking nothing farther than to have the toma- 
hawk and scalping knife kept out of the contest — British agents, 
with the sanction of their government, did not hesitate to do in a 
spirit of inhumanity so sanguinary aud unrelenting, that it urged on 
Indian warfare, even when it hesitated in the execution of its 
stealthy and bloody missions. 

The Border Wars, the tory and Indian incursions from Canada, 
Oswego and Niagara, continued at intervals from the flight of the 
Johnsons, Butler and Brant in '75, until August 1779. The horrid 
details already fill volumes of published history.* With powerful 
British armies to contend with upon the sea board — work enough 
for the feeble and exhausted colonies — inadequate help had been 
afforded to repel invaders of the frontier settlements of New York. 
The stealthy foe could make descents by land or water through dif- 
ferent unguarded avenues, and when their work of death was 
accomplished, retreat to their strong holds at Oswego and Niagara 
a wide wilderness their defence and security against pursuit and 
retribution. When expeditions were planned at Niagara, if designed 
for the valley of the Mohawk, the Indians and tories would concen- 
trate at Oswego ; and if the valley of the Susquehannah was the 
destination, they would concentrate upon the Genesee river, Seneca 



*For these details the reader is referred to Campbell's Annals of Tryon County. 
Simra's History of Schoharie and the Border Wars, Stone's Life of Brant, History of 
Onondaga, and the Holland Purchase. 



80 PHELPS AOT) GOEHAIm's PUECHASE. 

Lake, or the Tioga river. Their prisoners were usually taken to 
Fort Niagara, the Bastile of the then western wilderness 

At last, in the early part of the year 1779, Gen. Washington de- 
termined upon a measure for carrying the war home upon the inva- 
ders, routing the Indians from their villages, and if practicable, the 
seige and capture of Fort Niagara. The command was entrusted 
to Gen. Sullivan. The army organized for the expedition was in 
three divisions. That part of it under the immediate command of 
Gen. Sullivan, coming from Pennsylvania, ascended the Susquehan- 
nah to Tioga Point. Another division under the command of Gen. 
James Clinton, constructing hatteaux at Schenectady, ascended the 
Mohawk and rendezvoused at Canajoharrie, opened a road to the 
head of Otsego Lake, and from thence proceeded in a formidable 
fleet of over two hundred batteaux, to Tioga Point, forming a 
junction with the force under Gen. Sullivan, on the 22d of August. 
Previous to the arrival of Gen. Clinton, Sullivan had sent forward 
a detachment which fell in with a scouting party of Indians, and a 
skirmish ensued. 

The combined forces amounted to 5,000 men. The expedition 
had been so long preparing, and upon the march, that the enemy 
were well apprized of all that was going on. Their plan of de- 
fence contemplated a decisive engagement upon the Chemung river. 
For this purpose the Rangers and regular British troops, under the 
command of Col. John Butler, Cols. Guy and Sir John Johnson, 
Major Walter N. Butler and Capt. M'Donald, and the Indians 
under Brant had concentrated their forces upon a bend of the river, 
near the present village of Elmira, where they had thrown up a 
long breast w^ork of logs. The united forces of the British allies 
as computed by Gen. Sullivan, was about 1500.* Having ascer- 
tained their position, Gen. Sullivan marched in full force and attacked 
them in the forenoon of the 29th of August. He found the enemy 
partly entrenched and partly arranged in scouting and flanking 
parties, the Indians especially adopting their favorite mode of war- 
fare. Well provided with artillery, a heavy fire was opened upon 
the enemies entrenchments, which soon proved them a weak de- 
fence ; a part of the Indians were panic stricken by the heavy 
cannonade, and fled, while other portions of them were rallied by 

* Assumed to be much less in the British accounts. 



PHELPS A^^D goeham's puechase. 81 

their intrepid leader, Brant, and well maintained the unequal contest. 
" Both tories and Indians were entitled to the credit of fighting 
manfully. Every rock and tree and bush, sheltered its man, from 
hehind which the wnnged messengers of death were thickl.y sent, 
but with so little effect as to excite astonishment. The Indians 
yielded ground only inch by inch ; and in their retreat darted from 
tree to tree with the agility of a panther, often contesting each new 
position at the point of the bayonet — a thing very unusual even 
with militiamen, and still more rare among the undisciplined warriors 
of the woods." * The battle had been waged about two hours, 
when the British and Indians perceiving their forces inadequate, 
and that a maneuver to surround them was likely to be successful, 
broke and fled in great disorder. 

" This " says John Salmon, of Livingston county, who belonged to 
the expedition and gave an account of it to the author of the Life 
of Mary Jemison, " was the only regular stand made by the In- 
dians. In their retreat they were pursued by our men to the Nar- 
rows, where they were attacked and killed in great numbers, so that 
the sides of the rocks next the River looked as if blood had been 
poured on them by pailfuls." 

The details of all that transpired in this campaign are before the 
public in so many forms, that their repetition here is unnecessary. 
The route of the army w^as via " French Catherine's Town," f head 
of Seneca Lake, down the east shore of the Lake to the Indian 
village of Kanadesaga, (Old Castle.) and from thence to Canandai- 
gua, Honeoye, head of Conesus Lake, to Groveland. The villages 
destroyed, (with the apple trees and growing crops of the Indians.) 
were at Catherinestown, Kendai, or " Apple Town " on the east 
side of the Lake, eleven miles from its foot, Kanadesaga, Honeoye, 
Conesus, Canascraga, Little Beard's Town, Big Tr*e, Canawagus, 
and on the return of the army, Scawyace, a village between the 

* Life of Brant. 

t Name from Catherine Montour. Slie was a half blood, is said to have been the 
daughter of one of the French Governors of Canada. She was made a captive and 
adopted by the Senecas when she was ten years of age, becoming afterwards the wife 
of a distinguished Seneca Chief When on several occasions she accompanied the 
chief to Philadelphia her extraordinary beauty, joined to a considerable polish of 
manners, made her the "observed of all observers;" she was invited to a private house 
and treated with much respect. She resided at the head of Seneca Lake previous to 
Sullivan's exjjedition, and afterwards at Fort Niagara, where she was treated with 
marked attention by the British oiScers. 



82 PHELPS Am) gorhajvi's purchase. 

Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, and several other Cayuga villages. 
Captain Machin was at the head of the engineers in this expedition. 
The industrious gleaner of Border War reminiscences, the author 
of the History of Schoharie, has found among his papers the fol- 
lowing, which accompanied a map of Sullivan's entire route : — 

" Distance of places from Easton, Pennsylvania, to Chenesee, \^Gen- 
esee'\ Castle, taken in 1779, by actual survey : — 

NAMES OF PLACES. MILES. TOTAL. 

From Easton to Weomining, ----- 65 65 

To Lackewaneck Creek, 10 75 

Quailiitemimk, ------- 7 82 

Tuukhaniuink Creek, 11 93 

Meshohing Creek, 9 102 

Vanderlips Plantation, ------ 5 107 

Wealusking Town, '8 115 

Wessawkin, or Pine Creek, U^< 129}^ 

Tioga, - 15>| 145 

Chemung, 12 " 157 

Newton, 8)^ 1651^ 

French Catherinestown, ------ 18 *l83j^ 

Kandia or Appleton 27^ 211 

Outlet of Seneca Lake, 11>| 222)^ 

Kanadesaga, or Seneca Castle - - . - 31.^ , 226 

Kanandaque, 15}4 241)^ 

Haunyauya, 13)| 255 

Adjusta, 121^ 267i| 

Cossauwauloughby, ------- 7 274) 2 

Chenesee Castie 5)^ 280 

It is probable a better table of distances than has since been 
made. Among the papers of Capt. Machin, is the following certifi- 
cate : — 

" This may certify that Kayingwaurto the Sanakee chief, has been on an expedition 
to Fort Stanwix and taken two scalps, one from an officer and a coiijoral, they were 
gunning near the Fort, for which I promise to pay at sight, ten dollars for each scalp. 
Given under my hand at Buck's Island. JOHN" BUTLER, Col. and 

Supt. of the Six Nations and the allies of his Majesty." 

This Kayingwaurto was a principal Seneca chief at Kanadesaga, 
He was killed by a scouting party of Gen. Sullivan's army, and in 
his pocket the certificate was found. The history of those scalps is 
one of the most melancholy tales of that era of terrible savage war- 
fare. The chief in 1777, with a scouting party of Seneca warriors, 
was prowling about Fort Stanwix. Capt. Gregg, and a Corporal of 
the Fort, had ventured out to shoot pigeons, when they were fired at 
by the Indian scouts ; the corporal being killed and Capt. Gregg 
severely wounded. Both were scalped ; but after the Indians had left 



PHELPS AXD GORHAm's PURCHASE. 83 

Capt Gregg revived. His dog ran off to some fishermen o?" the 
Fort, a mile distant, alarmed tiiem by his moaning, attracted them 
in the direction of his wounded master. Capt. Gregg was thus 
discovered, and lived to relate the story of his preservation. It is 
given upon the authority of Dr. D wight. 

The march of Sullivan, the devastations committed by his army, 
would at this distant period seem like Vandalism, in the absence 
of the consideration that he was acting under strict orders ; and 
that those orders were approved, if not dictated by Washington. 
The campaign was a matter of necessity ; to be effectual, it was 
not only necessary that its acts should be retaliatory and retributive, 
but that the haunts, the retreats, of a Ibe so ruthless, must be bro- 
ken up. The object was to destroy all the means of subsistence 
of the Senecas, desolate their homes, prevent their return to them, 
and if possible, induce their permanent retreat beyond the Niagara 
River. The imprudence, the want of sagacity, which Col. Stone 
has imputed to Gen. Sullivan in alarming every village he approach- 
ed by the sound of his cannon, the author conceives, a misappre- 
hension of his motives. Stealthy, quiet approaches, would have 
found as victims in every village, the old men, the women and 
children — the warriors away, banded with their British allies. 
Humanity dictated the forewarning, that those he did not come to 
war against could have time to flee. It would have been a far 
darker feature of the campaign than those that have been complained 
of, and one that could not have been mitigated, if old men, women 
and children, had been unalarmed, and exposed to the vengeance 
of tho.«;e who came from the valleys of the Susquehannah and the 
Mohawk to punish murderers of their kindred and neighbors. The 
march of Gen. Sullivan, after leaving the Chemung, was bloodless, 
except in a small degree — just as it should have been, if he could 
not make victims of those he was sent to punish. 

The third expedition of this campaign, which has generally been 
lost sight of by historians, was that of Gen. Broadhead. He left 
Fort Pitt in August with six hundred men, and destroyed several 
Mingo and Muncey tribes living on the Allegany, French Creek, 
and other tributaries of the Ohio. 

; The heavy artillery that Gen. Sullivan brought as far as Newton, 
would indicate that Niagara was originally the destination. There 
the General and his officers, seein;r how long it had taken to reach 



84 PHELP3 A]S^D GOEIIAm's PUECHASE. 

that point, in all probability determined that too much of the season 
had been wasted, to allow of executing their tasks in the Indian 
country, making their roads and moving the army and all its ap- 
pointments to Niagara before the setting in of winter. Besides, before 
the army had reached the valley of the Chemung, the fact was 
ascertained that there would be a failure in a contemplated junction 
with the army under Gen. Broadhead. 

After the expedition of Gen. Sullivan, the Indians never had any 
considerable permanent re- occupancy of their villages east of the 
Genesee river. They settled down after a brief flight, in their 

villa2;es on the west side of the river in the neighborhood of Gen- 
es o 

eseo, 'Mt. Morris and Avon, and at Gardeau, Canadea, Tonawanda, 
Tuscarora, Buffalo Creek, Cattaraugus and Allegany. For retreats 
of the Johnsons, Butler and their troops, see narrative of William 
Hincher, in subsequent pages ; and for Gen. Washington's official 
account of Sullivan's expedition, as copied from the manuscripts 
of a Revolutionary officer for the History of the Holland Purchase, 
see Appendix, No. 3. 

Note. — The author derives from James Otis Esq. of Perry, Wyoming County, a 
more satisfactory account of the retreat of the Indians upon the Genesee River, than 
he has seen from any other source. He became acquainted with Mary Jemison in 
1810. She told liim that when Sullivan's army was approaching the place of her resi- 
dence, Little Beard's Town, the Indians retreated upon the Silver Lake trail. "When 
about two miles from the Lake they halted to await expected re-inforcements from 
Buffalo Creek. They had a white person with them that they hung by bending down 
a small tree, fastening to it a bark halter they had around liis neck, and letting it fly 
back ; tlms suspending their victim in the ah. The bones and the bent tree attested 
the truth of the relation long after white settlements commenced. Reinforcements 
from Buffalo arrived, a council was held which terminated in the conclusion that they 
were too weak to risk an attack of SiiUivan. When their invaders had retreated, the 
great body of the Indians went back to the sites of their old villages upon the River. 
Mrs. Jemison, went around on the west side of Silver Lake, and then down to Gardeau 
flats, where she found two negroes living that had raised some com. She husked com 
for the negi-oes and earned enough to supply lier family with bread until the next 
harvest This occupancy continued, Mrs. Jemison had the Gardeau tract granted to 
her at the Morris treaty. 



PAET SECOND 



CHAPTER I 



OUR IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS THE SENEGAS WITH A GLANCE AT 

THE IROQUOIS. 



It is not the design of this work to embrace a detailed account of 
the Five Nations. The Senecas, however, the Tsonnontouans of 
French chronicle, who guarded the western door of the Long 
House, looking out on the Great Lakes, demand a passing notice, as 
we are approaching a series of events connected with the " par- 
tition " of their wide and beautiful domain. 

In common with the red races, they are the " autochihonoi " of the 
soil — "fresher from the hand that formed of earth the human 
face," than the present rulers of the land that was once theirs. 
On their hunting grounds, the pioneers of the Genesee country, 
preparatory to settlement, kindled their camp-fires. Our clustering 
cities and villages are on the sites of their ancient castles, forts and 
places of burial. In the vallies where they lived, and on hills 
where blazed their beacons, a people with the best blood of Europe 
in their veins, at one and the same time, are founding halls of learn- 
ing, and gathering in the golden harvests. The early annals of 
their occupation, to which the reader is soon to be introduced, are 
intimately blended with this once powerful and numerous branch 
of the Iroquois confederacy, that furnished under the totemic 
bond, at the era of confederation, two of the presiding law-givers 

and chiefs. * 

An opinion prevails, that the guardians of the Eastern Door, the 
Mohawks ; or, as called by their brethren, " Do-de-o-gah," or 



Documentary History. 



86 PHELPS AND GOEHAMS PUECIIASE. 

"message bearers," were the most warlike; but a careful exami- 
nation of history and the pages of Jesuit journals, establishes the 
fact, that the Senecas were not their inferiors in every martial at- 
tribute, and were always represented at a general gathering of the 
clans, in time of danger, by a more formidable force. There is no 
foundation for the remark of Buchanan, speaking in reference to 
the Mohawks, that their allies neither made war or peace without 
their consent. 

Unquestionable proof is on record, that the fierce Senecas were 
not always governed in their action by the general voice at Onon- 
daga. Sternly independent, they some times took up arms, when 
the other tribes, to use an Indian metaphor, sate smoking in quiet 
on their mats. After the rapid decline of French ascendancy on 
this continent, and many of the tribes beheld with terror the gov- 
ernment of Canada falling into English hands, the Senecas, un- 
daunted by the danger, adhered with dogged obstinacy, to the 
vanquished. 

For a time, they were in alliance with Pontiac, and played a 
conspicuous part with the great " Ottawa " in his plan of surprising 
a cordon of posts in the Lake country, and exterminating the 
" dogs in red clothing," that guarded them. This statement does 
not rest on vague conjecture, or blind tradition. By reference to 
the British Annual Register, for 1764, we learn that on the 3d of 
April, 1763, Sir William Johnson concluded ai Johnson Hall, on 
the Mohawk, preliminary articles of peace with eight deputies of 
the Seneca nation, which alone of the Iroquois league, had joined 
Pontiac. While the proud and conquering Mohawks imposed 
tribute on the Mohegans, and scoured the pine-forests of distant 
Maine in pursuit of flying foes, westward the track of the Senecas 
was literally marked in blood. The Neuter Nation, with homes on 
both sides of the Niagara, were " blotted from the things that be :" 
and the Eries, after a brave resistance, destroyed — the prize of 
conquest, the loveliest portion of our trans-Genessean country. 
The barren coast of Superior, a thousand miles away from their 
great council-fire, was trodden by their warriors. 

The Illinois turned pale at their approach on the shores of 
the Mississippi, and no hatchets were redder than theirs in the 
Herculean task of humbling the Lenni Lenapes, and for ever 
hushing into silence their boastinc; tongaies. 



PURCHASE. 87 

The Chippewas, a valiant people, discomfitted and utterly dis- 
mayed by their prowess, fled like hunted deer to the remote vil- 
lages of the Sioux, The long and bloody wars waged by the Five 
Nations with the Southern tribes, owed their origin to an attack 
made on the Senecas in one of their distant expeditions to the 
south west, Dy a party of Cherokees. The war-post was at once 
struck, and the confederates joined with their injured brethren in 
resenting the insult, and taming the pride of their wily antagonists. 
Though a vast extent of territory lay between the hunting grounds 
of the latter and the central fire of their cantons, the dreaded 
war-whoop of the Iroquois w.as heard on the banks of the Talla- 
poosa and Ocmulgee. Forbidding wilds, draped in the long gray 
moss of milder latitudes, and swampy fastnesses, the savage haunts 
of the alligator and terrapin, were explored by the infuriated in- 
vaders. 

Nature opposed no barrier to a triumphant campaign, and dis- 
tance was no obstacle in the fearful work of retaliation. 

Hiokaloo, the renowned husband of the "White Woman," was a 
leader in one of these wild forays, and when a gray-haired ancient, 
cheered many a listening circle at his lodge fire, with a narrative 
of his exploits on that occasion. 

Individuals of Cherokee extraction, still reside on the Tonawan- 
da Reservation. They trace their descent to captives, saved from 
torture at the stake, and adopted as tribesmen by their victors. 

I must differ from many writers, misled by Heckew^elder, in the 
opinion that compared with surrounding nations, the Iroquois were 
not a superior race of men. No primitive people can boast of 
nobler war captains, than Kan-ah-je-a-gah, Hon-ne-ya-was, Brant, 
Hendrick and Skenandoah ; — no abler orators and statesmen than 
Dekanissora, Canassetego, Logan and Red Jacket. 

When the adventurous Frenchmen first set foot on Canadian soil, 
in 1003, he found the tribes of the League settled near Hochelaga, 
on the site of Montreal. Previous to this eventful period, they were 
said to have been a peaceful and happy people — more inclined to 
till the earth than follow the war-path. The unprovoked encroach- 
ment of the Adirondacks on their land — a powerful nation residing 
300 miles above Trois-Rivieres, at length woke their latent energies, 
and roused their martial qualities. After their expulsion from the 
banks of the St. Lawrence, one of America's mighty arteries, and 



88 PHELP3 AlfD GOEHAM's PTJECHASE. ,, 

conquering the Satanas in their migrations, they laid the founda- 
tion of empire on the borders of our beautiful Lakes. Seasoned, 
like Caesar's veterans, by hardship, long marches and victory, they 
bravely resisted the inroads of their old enemies, the Hurons and 
Adirondacks. Though inferior in physical force, they made ample 
amends therefor, by the exercise of greater prudence, and superior 
strategy. Fighting in small detached parties, and under intrepid 
leaders, they struck blows in remote points, at one and the same 
moment of time, producing a general panic and surprise. 

In turn, assuming the offensive, they drove back the invaders, 
disheartened and discomfitted, to the neighborhood of Quebec. 
Then came the tug of war. Through the intervention of Jesuit 
influence, so puissant in the 17th century, that Kings and I'ontiffs 
submitted to its dictation, the French colonists formed an alliance 
with the vanquished tribes. Supplied with more deadly weapons — 
the fire-locks of civilization — the Algonquin and Huron again 
struggled for the mastery. By consulting Golden, we learn that 
previous to the conflict between Champlain and the Iroquois, on the 
Lake that bears his name, the latter had never heard the thunder 
or seen the lightning of the pale faces. Though defeated on that 
occasion, they were not humbled ; all fear of consequences was 
merged in a feeling of deep and deadly exasperation. The re- 
doubtable Champlain himself, was doomed a few years after to feel 
the heavy weight of their vengeance. * Incautiously laying siege 
to one of their forts on Onondaga Lake, in October, 1615, he was 
twice wounded by arrows, and forced to retire in disgrace with his 
motley array of French and Indians. 

He who foils, in hard encounter, a dexterous swordsman, with 
an oaken stafi', gives proof of matchless address and prowess — 
and the fact that the Five Nations, recovering from the effects of a 
first surprise, boldly maintained their ground, even at this period, 
and often played an aggressive part, proves their native superiority, 
and gives them indisputable right to their own haughty term of 
designation — " On-gui-hion-wi " — men without peers. 

French interference, in behalf of their old and implacable foes, 
only developed the genius of their Sachems, and attested the devo- 
tion of their warriors. 

* 0. H. Marshall's able.addrees before the Young Men's Association at Buffalo. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 89 

It was extremely impolitic on the part of the Canadian colony, 
far from the resources of the mother country, thus in a state of in- 
fancy, to provoke the hate of unconquerable tribes. The Charis- 
toone, or Iron Workers, as they termed their neighbors, the Dutch, 
and after their decline, the English, supplied the Konoshioni with 
ammunition and arms. Jealous of French influence, they encouraged 
them to wage a war that should ask np quarter, and know no end- 
ing, until Canada was depopulated. Then blacker grew the tem- 
pest: — from the pine plains of Ske-nec-ta-da to the great Lake, 
a gathering-cry was heard, that rang through the arches of the 
forest, more dreadful than the panther's scream. Towns and out- 
posts were burned — the Carignan was struck down- at his door- 
stone, and the settler scalped in the midst of his clearing. Neither 
age nor sex was spared. 

The fur-trader found a red grave in the wilderness ; even the 
sentinel was shot pacing his rounds, and the unwary batteauman 
dyed with his heart's best blood the waters of Cataracqui. 

French America, through the administration of successive Vice- 
roys of Louis XIV., atoned for her folly in the dispersion of her 
Abenaqui — the sack of Montreal — the defeat of her faithful 
Hurons under the guns of Quebec, and humiliating irruptions of a 
foe that overran the province, to use the strong figure of her annal- 
ists, " as a torrent does the low-lands, when it overflows its banks, 
and there is no withstanding it." 

Compare for a moment the Atahualpas and Huan Capacs of 
Peruvian history, with the dreaded founders and rulers of this 
Aboriginal League. Though mighty armies came at their call, 
resplendant with gold and blazing with jewels, they were routed by 
Pizarro, with a few horsemen at his back. Charging steed and 
shouting rider— deemed by the silly natives one animal, like the 
Centaur of fable — rattling gun and the blast of the trumpet 
subdued them with a terror that no appeal to patriotism could 
overcome. In sight of their homes and altars, thousands were 
slain like unresisting sheep, the survivors bowing their necks to the 
yoke, and looking tamely on, while their heart-broken Incas suffer- 
ed ignominious death. The mighty empire of the Aztecs had ex- 
perienced a few years before, the same disastrous fate ; it crumbled 
away, as it were, in a night ; the splendor of its adorning more ef- 
fectually insuring its destruction. 
6 



90 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASB. 

The romantic valor of a few Castiiian adventurers, outweighed 
in the scale of conflict, the countless multitudes that opposed thena^ 
Montezuma and Gua.imozin, after all, were noth.ng more than 
royal shadows, notwithstanding their patient martyrdom. 

The sceptred phantoms invoked by the we.rd sisters were less 
frJland unsubstantial, for they inspired fear - extortmg th.s shud^ 
dering cry from a tyrant and regicide, bloody and false hke Cortez - 

" Let tliis pernicious hour 

Stand, aye, accursed in tlie calendar." 

Of different mould and mettle, were the Sachems »d Attotarhos 
of the Five Nations, They were endowed with the will to dare 
the hand to execute. Their Garangulas and Decamssoras - he r 
Oundlagas and Karistageas united to indomitable courage, talents 
for negotiation, and resistless eloquence. , . ■ .■.„^ ,„ 

Less brilliant than banded states that pa,d -b'n.ss.ve t. bu e to 
the Aztec emperor, there was more stabihty and strength m their 
^written compact of union. Though a --^^-^J" . I"" ^^^ 
with the swarming and priest-ridden slaves of Mexeo they posses- 
sed an inherent vior and spirit of independence "- -"j-f^ ° 
no wrong, and brooked no rivalry. Seldom in the field w.tn more 
than a thousand warriors, they went forth conquering and to con- 
quer- bound by an heraldic tie that evoked a deeply-rooted sent.- 
ment of regard and national pride. 

Less formidable by far was Spanish inroad at the extreme south 
than French military power on this continent so vainly exeited, 
under De Nonville and Frontenac. to overawe and subaue them, 
" and it can scarcely be deemed fanciful to assert, says a dis- 
tinguished writer, • "that had Hernando Cortez entere the Mohawk 
vaSey instead of that of Mexico, with the force he actually had, h 
W ranks would have gone down under the ski fulness of the Iroquois 
ambuscades, and himself perished ingloriously at t 'e^'j>^« , 

Wherever they w^ere urged onward by a martial impulse and 
ardor that no difficnlties could lessen or abate -whether traversing 
the Appalachian chain or western prairie - the fame of the r ex- 
ploits preceeding them, created panic, and carahzed resistance, 
fhough hied in number by long and bloody wars, they were fea - 
fully formidable in modern times : foes in cur revolutionary struggle. 



* Schoolcraft. 



PHELPS A?7D GORHAm's PURCHASE. 91 

they proved their devotion to their British Father at Wyoming, 
Minnisink and mournful Oriskany — friends at a later epoch, of our 
Union, t'hey followed Oundiaka and Honneyawas to the red field of 
Chippewa. At all periods of their history — flushed with triumph, or 
clouded by disaster — there has been no decay of hereditary valor. 
Whether known as ' Massawomekes' to the southern, or ' Na- 
dowa' to the western Tribes, they were alike terrible and invinci- 
ble. A more splendid race of savages never launched their war- 
canoes on our streams, or drew bow in our forests ;and a wild mag- 
namity throws light on their darker traits, in their practical applica- 
tion of the motto, "parcere subjectos, et extirpare superbos." Hu- 
manity blushes to recall the scenes of rape and heUish licence that 
have followed the storming of towns, and sack of cities in the old world, 
but an Iroquois warrior was never known to violate the chastity of 
a female prisoner. 

Often a chivalric spirit gave an air of romance to their native 
daring. After a successful foray into an enemy's country, pursu- 
ers on the trail, finding their gage of mortal defiance, would move 
with greater circumspection. Like the generous reptile whose 
dread rattle arrests the step of the hunter, significant tokens dropped 
by the way, warned foemen to retire, or expect no mercy at their 
hands. Thus in 1696, when Frontenac's army was on the Oswego, 
two bundles of cut rushes, in their line of march, a numerical sign, 
conveyed the startling intelligence that more than fourteen hundred 
warriors w^ere on the watch for their coming. 

Not less haughty and heroic was their conduct in 1779, when re- 
tiring before the greatly superior force of Sullivan. They bent a 
tree, and twisted its rugged top around the trunk, as an emblem of 
their own situation — bent but not broken — smitten, but not over- 
thrown. 

Though all the tribes of aboriginal America were competitors ; the 
palm for greatest manifestation of mental power would be awarded 
to this extraordinary people. The principle of unity that banded 
them together, offspring of profound policy that lifts them above the 
hunter state — their love of liberty that scorned submission to foreign 
control ; their ability to cope, in council, with the most skillful diplo- 
matists of a boasted civilization — the wonderful eloquence of their 
orators, challenging comparison with the finest periods of Demos- 
thenes — their self-reliance that laughed at the menaces of kings — 



92 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCnASE. 

their long adherence to one great plan of conquest ; — bear witness 
that they were a highly-gifted race, and may well make them objects 
of intense interest to the poet, philosopher and historian. The climate 
enjoyed, and the country occupied by them were favorable to the de- 
velopement of a noble manhood. Their broad domain was irrigated 
by streams whose rich alluvial bottoms rewarded the rudest tillage 
with a full supply of golden maize ; its forests abounding in animals of 
chase — bear, bounding deer, majestic moose and elk — furnished 
their lodge boards with venison ; and the lovely lakes that spotted its 
rolling surface, paid rich tribute to the bark-net, and barbed spear of 
the fisherman. 

Man owes many of his characteristics to the scenes amid which 
he is nursed, and the grand, geographical features of Iroquois em- 
pire were sources to its upholders and lords, af high, ennobling 
thought. Rivers rushing to find a level "either in the gulfs of St. 
Lawrence and Mexico, or in the intermediate shores of the Atlan- 
tic " — Erie and Ontario, those lonely worlds of waters, that border- 
ed on the north and west, with a blue belt, their hunting grounds ; 
the Adirondack chain, with its deep gorges, vapory cones, and 
splintered chffs — old mossy woods, where the mysterious winds 
awoke their wildest music ; glades basking in the light, and glens, 
where reigned at noon-day a sepulchral gloom; and, more than 
all, the mighty Cataract of Niagara, singing an eternal anthem at 
the western door of their Long House; were sights and sounds that 
found a reflex and an echo, not only in their magnificent traditions, 
but in the sublime imagery and symbolic phraseology of their 
orators. Previous to the overthrow of the Neuter Nation, and 
subsequent to that event, of the Eries, the Seneca country extended 
westward to the Genesee. After that period they were undisputed 
masters of the soil from the valley of Pleasant Water, to the banks 
of the De-o-se-o-wa, or Buffalo Creek. Disputes have arisen among 
antiquarians, as to the question whether the Kah-kv/ahs and Eries 
were one and the same people. All Indian history proves that a 
tribe is often known by diverse names in their own tongue, as well 
as in different dialects. For example, referring to their position, the 
Senecas were called " Swan-ne-ho-ont," (door on the hinge) — in 
reference to the place of their origin — an elevated point at the 
head of Canandaigua Lake, " Nun-do- wa-ga," or people of the Hill. 
Whether known as Allegan, Erie, or Kah-kwah, the w^estern door- 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 93 

keepers struggled many years in vain to give the Long House 
of the League a greater extension. For the first time since quitting 
their Canadian seats, on the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, were 
they checked in their march toward the setting sun. Their rivals 
in arnjs were inclined, while hand could wield hatchet, not to sur- 
render without a blow the broad spreading chase-grounds of their 
fathers : — and a glorious land it was — a Canaan of the wilderness 
— well worth the bloody sacrifice that was made by a luckless and 
gallant people in defending the integrity of its soil. Opposed to 
them was a foe, renowned throughout the nations, for courage, en- 
durance, enterprise and boundless ambition. 

The latter assign as cause of war, the defeat of the Kah-kwahs 
in ball playing, and other athletic sports, though the challenging 
party. 

I am inclined to believe, howevei", that the Senecas were the ag- 
gressors, — competitors for the spoils in one of those games of life 
and death that the human race, savage and civilized, have played in 
all ages and in all lands. 

Their fierce and restless natures could ill bear aught that blocked 
the way to a more extended rule: — bounds to their supremacy, 
westward, were not to be found on the Genesee, while beyond its 
channel lay one of the fairest gardens of this western World. It 
was an easy task for their subtle minds to frame a pretext — a much 
harder one for their strong right arms to wrest a priceless heritage 
from its heroic defenders. 

In August of the year 1653, Father Le Moyne — known among 
red men as Ondessonk — visited the Onondagas, and found them 
bitterly bewailing the loss that the confederacy had sustained in the 
massacre of the great Seneca Chief " An-nen-cra-os " by their 
enemies, the Kah-kwahs. The war raged for a time without any 
very disastrous result to either party. 

Unaided by their eastern brethren, the Senecas, however, triumph- 
ed in the first general engagement — unmistakeable proof of their 
high, martial qualities ; for their opponents displayed a desperate 
hardihood, on that day, worthy of a more fortunate issue. 

Some writers are of opinion, that the battle was fought near the 
Honeoye outlet, and midway between Canandaigua Lake and the 
Genesee River: — others locate the scene of carnage more than a 
day's march from the old village of Cannewaugus, in a westward 



94 pnELPs AND gorham's purchase. 

direction. T)ie place of final conflict is better known. Leaving 
more than half of their warriors, pierced by the shafts, and crushed 
by the war clubs of the conquerors, the survivors lied to their prin- 
cipal village, and strong-hold on the De-o-se-o-wa. 

Reinforced by tlieir allies, the Senecas pursued and attacked them 
in their fortress. After a brave resistance a feeble remnant of the 
once haughty Eries fled from their old hearth-stones and possessions 
to an Island of the Allegany ; but a foe was on their trail, truer 
than the sleuth-hound when he has tasted blood. The unhappy 
fugitives, surprised in their encampment, fled down the river, under 
cover of night, losing forever in distant wilds, their identity as a 
nation. A few, saved from the general slaughter and dispersion, 
were adopted by the confederates ; for by this politic course, they 
in part, repaired the dreadful ravages of war, and postponed the 
dismal hour of their own inevitable declension and fall. 

I cannot forbear, in my brief sketch of their extirpation, from 
closing in the eloquent words of my friend Marshall : — " They are 
a people of whom there is scarcely a memorial, save the name of 
the Lake that washes the shore they ruled. Fit mausoleum of an 
extinct tribe ! Even the vague tradition that transmits their mem- 
ory, will soon be lost, with the last remnant of the 'Nun-de-wa-gas' 
that swept them from existence." 

Enraged by continued infraction of their territory, during the ad- 
ministration of De la Barre, by the passage of French trading 
parties to the south west, laden with material to arm their enemies, 
the Senecas began hostilities by wresting from them their powder 
and lead — seizing their canoes, and dismissing them, homeward, 
with threats of torture and death if they ever returned. In his in- 
structions to the French Governor, on receipt of the alarming intelli- 
gence, Louis XIV. recommended a prompt invasion of the hostile 
country, and directed that all prisoners of war taken in the cam- 
paign, when opportunity ofiered, should be shipped to France, re- 
marking, in his despatch, that " the Iroquois, being stout and robust, 
would serve with advantage in his galleys.' 

What plan, by the rash Bourbon, could have been devised, I ask, 
more certain than this to undermine his sovreignty on this conti- 
nent? iVn attempt to enslave a high spirited race, that preferred 
liberty to life, was a long stride, on the part of French America, 
towards certain destruction. Captives, treacherously seized, were. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 95 

actually carried to France, in pusurance of royal policy, and forced 
into degrading service. 

At a subsequent period they were liberated and laden with pres- 
ents, brought back to Canada. But the dragon-teeth had been sown, 
and it was too late to hope for a burial of the hatchet. The insult 
was one that the Five Nations would neither forget nor forc^ive : — 
and many were the bloody scalps that soon hung drying in the 
smoke of their wigwams. De la Barre's expedition to La Famine, 
or Hungry Bay, in compliance with the royal pleasure, was attended 
by disastrous results. A terrible distemper broke out in his camp, 
and the half- famished troops, spurning restraints of discipline, clamor- 
ed for speedy departure to their homes. 

While thus in a condition to become an easy prey for enemies, 
ever on the watch, he endeavored to achieve by diplomacy what he 
could not effect by force. Messengers were sent entreating the Five 
Nations to meet him in council on the shore of the Lake. 

The Mohawks and Senecas returned a haughty refusal, but the 
remaining tribes complied with his request. The speech of Garan- 
gula, on that occasion, has been justly deemed a master-piece of 
argument and eloquence. 

De la Barre had indulged in idle bravado, thinking that his real 
situation was unknown to his eagle-eyed adversary ; and nothing 
could have astonished him more than the picture drawn by the 
sarcastic chief, of his utter inabihty to strike a blow — or more 
galling to a soldier's pride, than the taunting language that he em- 
ployed : 

"Hear, Yonnondio! our women had taken their clubs, our chil- 
dren and old men had carried their bows and arrows into the heart 
of 5^our camp, if our warriors had not disarmed them, and kept 
them back." 

Soon after this signal exposure of his weakness, the Governor 
returned to Canada, with a dispirited army, and a tarnished reputa- 
tion. 

The Marquis De Nonville, successor of De la Barre, though an 
accomplished officer, was taught a still sterner lesson in 1687. In 
July of that year, with two thousand regulars and militia, and a 
thousand friendly Indians, he landed at " 0-nyui-da-on-da-gwat," or 
Irondequoit Bay. The plan of campaign was .o attack the dread- 
ed " Long-house,"at a point never before invaded, by securing 



96 PHELPS AISTD GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

gi'eater chances of success. In crushing the Senecas, justly re- 
garded the most ferocious and formidable of the Five Nations, 
the Marquis hoped to curb the pride, and paralize the power of 
their strong League for ever. Great glory v.^ould also accrue to 
his name, in conquering a region, and annexing it to the crown 
of France, unsurpassed in beauty and fertility, " of regular sea- 
sons," mild of climate, intersected by numerous lakes and rivers, 
and said, by writers of the period, to be " capable of bearing all 
the fru-its of Touraine and Provence." 

In addition, by erecting a fort at " the extremity of a tongue of 
land between the Niagara River and Lake Ontario," he mtended to 
secure uninterrupted command of the great lakes, monopolize the 
beaver trade, and furnish a place ot rendezvous and supplies for the 
savage allies of France in their wars with the Iroquois. 

After building a redoubt, manned by several companies, to pro- 
tect the canoes and batteaux, four hundred in number, De Non- 
ville put his army in motion. Warned of the danger, the main 
body of the Seneca warriors hastened to remove their old men, 
women and children to places of safety, leaving a hundred picked 
men at a small fort to act as a corps of observation, and closely 
watch the progress of the invaders. 

The latter, informed that " Yonnondio " was on the war-path, 
sent runners to their friends, and 350 young men turned back to 
give him a suitable reception. 

An ambuscade was skillfully laid on a small wooded hill, about 
half a mile from the Indian castle of Ganagarro, at the foot of 
which was a deep and dangerous defile. 

The scouts of the army, on the second day of their march, passed 
without being molested, or observing their crafty enemies, even to 
the corn fields of the village. The lions of the Genesee lay 
crouched in their hidden lair, to pounce on more formidable prey. 
No note of alarm being heard, command was given to centre and 
winfTs to quicken their movements. Thinking that the braves of 
the nation had fled, and that they would meet with no opposition, 
the French plunged rashly into the defile. While in confused array, 
the dreaded and blood-curdling war whoops of the Iroquois rang in 
their ears, followed by a heavy volley of musketry. While their 
bravest went down under the close discharge, the foremost ranks 
recoiled ; then, emulating French speed at the " Battle of the spurs," 



PKELPS AOT) G0EirA3l's PUECHASE. 97 

shamefully fled, disorganizing the whole line, and carrying dismay 
in their course. " Battalions," — says La Hontan, a spectator, and 
the historian of the fight — " separated into platoons, that ran with- 
out order, pell-mell, to the right and left, not knowing whither they 
went." A more vivid picture of utter overthrow for the time, and 
the contagion of fear, could not be drawn. 

Before the panic subsided, the Senecas broke cover, and charged 
the flying foe, tomahawk in hand. 

Many of the fugitives were slain, but the pursuers followed too 
far, losing the advantage of a thick wood, and strong position. Such 
was their paucity of numbers, that they could only for a brief period 
make^ head against a host. By rallying his routed troops, and 
making a combined attack of regulars, militia and Indians, De Non- 
ville checked the Senecas, and after a valiant stand, and desperate 
efforts to stem the refluent tide of conflict, they were compelled 
reluctantly to give way. 

Spartan prowess could have done no more. A General, thirty 
years in service, and a favorite officer of "the Magnificent Louis," 
had been surprised ; his savage hordes, colonial levies, and veteran 
regiments disordered, charged and driven back by a much smaller 
force than his own rear-guard — and only saved, by overwhelming 
numbers, from the crowning disgrace of a disastrous defeat. 

Though repulsed, the Senecas were not disheartened, and when 
challenged, in their retreat, to stand and fight, halted on the brow 
of a hill, and replied : — " Come on, four hundred to our four hun- 
dred, and we have but a hundred men, and three hundred boys, and 
we will fight you hand to fist." * It is unnecessary to remark that 
the proposition was not accepted, for we have French authority for 
saying that the Iroquois were more skillful in the use of the gu\ 
than Europeans, f 

If De Nonville was the chivalrous soldier and christian, that 
Charlevoix represents him to have been, he left his good name be- 
hind him in this unfortunate expedition. In his report of the battle 
he has mingled much that is obviously false, an act unworthy of a 
gallant gentleman ; and he little honored the christian character, 
by permiting his wampum-decked allies, whose poltroonry was only 

* Doc. "His." Vol. 7, p. 248. 
t Doc. "His." p. 231. 



98 THELPS AND GORHAm's TUECHASE. 

surpassed by their horrid barbarities, to torture the helpless and 
wounded, breathing defiance to the lost, that fell into his hands. 

How can we reconcile with common ideas of honor, his official 
statement, that the skulking Ottawas performed their duty admirably 
in the action, with a passage in his published letter to the Minister, 
in which he bitterly denounces their cowardice and crueliy ? How 
can we reconcile his idle, and vain-glorious claim to an almost 
bloodless victory, with La Hontan's, that besides twenty-two woun- 
ded, an hundred Frenchmen, and ten savages were slain ? 

The Baron's honest narrative, so little flattering to the military 
pride of his countrymen, is corroborated, in the main, by other 
witnesses of the engagement. Well might an indignant savage, 
in view. of their utter inefficiency to cope with the "Western Ro- 
mans," sneeringly exclaim, that "they were only fit to make war on 
Indian corn, and bark canoes ; " for there is proof on record, that 
the French officers, at Mount Royal, jeered one another for being 
appalled by the Seneca war whoop to such a ' degree, as to fall 
terror-stricken and powerless to the gi'ound. * 

The memory of illustrious women who have matched, in defence 
of altar and hearth, the deeds of the sterner sex, has been enshrined 
in song, and honored by the Historic Muse. Joan of Arc, and the 
dark-eyed maid of Saragossa, in all coming time, will be chivalric 
watchwords for France and Spain, but not less worthy of record, 
and poetic embalmment, were the five devoted heroines who followed 
their red lords to the battle-field, near ancient Ganagarro, and 
fought with unflinching resolution by their sides, f Children of 
such wives could not be otherwise than valiant. " Bring back your 
shield, or be brought upon it," was the Spartan mother's stern in- 
junction to her son ; but, roused to a higher pitch of courage, the 
wild daughters of the Genesee stood in the perflous pass, and, in 
defence of their forest homes, " turned not back from the sword — 
the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." 

The results of this ill-conceived irruption into the Seneca can- 
ton, though preceded by months of busy preparation, great con- 
sumption of material, and attended by the pomp and parade of war, 
may be summed up in few words. 

* Doc. "His." Vol. 1, p. 246. 
tDoc. "Hig." Vol. 1, p. 248. 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 99 

A battle was fought in which the field was won by the French — 
the glory by their foe. Then a few unarmed prisoners were tor- 
tured, corn fields laid waste, and bark villages burned, followed by 
alarms that caused a precipitate retreat to their boats, harrassed 
every step of the way by hovering parties in pursuit. Embarking 
at Irondequoit, after the loss of about twenty men, * they coasted 
along the Lake, leaving a feeble garrison at Niagara to defend an 
isolated post. 

The greater part of them, soon after, including the commander, 
De Troyes, while closely besieged by the Iroquois, fell victims 
within their stockade, to the not less fearful assaults of famine and 
disease. 



CHAPTER II 



CONFLICTING CLAIMS TO WESTERN NEW YORK INDIAN TREATIES' 

THE LESSEE COMPANY THE MILITARY TRACT. 



In the treaty of peace of 1783, which ended the Revolutionary 
war, England, forgetful of their obligations to the Six Nations, 
most of whom had served them faithfully, as the devastated fron- 
tier settlements fully attested, made no provisions for their allies ; 
but left them to the mercy or discretion of those against whom they 
had carried on a long and sanguinary warfare. " The ancient 
country of the Six Nations, the residence of their ancestors, from 
the time far beyond their earliest traditions, was included in the 
boundary granted to Americans." f According to the usages of 



* "We have the news of Keman, that the .Indians have taken 8 men, 1 woman, 8 
crowns or scalps, and killed near upon 20 men at the place where the Barks lay." 
[Maj. Schuyler to Gov. Dongan, Doc. His. v. 1 p. 255, 
t Memorial of the Six Nations, presented to Lord Camden. 



100 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

war and the laws of civilized nations, they were a conquered peo- 
ple, and their country forfeited to the conqueror. But the authori- 
ties of our General and State Governments did not choose to apply 
so stringent a rule to the simple natives, who were unlearned in 
reference to the position in which their action in the war had pla- 
ced them, and had been the dupes of their unprincipled, ungrateful, 
and neglectful employers. A strong disposition prevailed in the 
state to regard their lands a forfeit — especially among those who 
had suffered most at their hands ; at one period, the State Legisla- 
ture entertained such a proposition — with so much favor, that it 
is probable it would have prevailed, but for the decided opposition of 
General Schuyler, aided by the influence of Washington, with the 
General Government. A different course was dictated by a feeling 
of humanity, as well as that of economy ; for renewed w^ar and 
conquest would have been far more expensive than peace negotia- 
tion and purchase proved to be. The wiser and better policy 
prevailed. 

The cessation of hostilities on the part of those to-whom they had 
lately been allies, left them in an embarrassing position. England 
had made a peace, and left her allies in the field to fight it out, or 
seek a peace upon their own account. British perfidy has seldom 
been more clearly exhibited. 

Previous to the cession by all the states, of lands within their 
boundaries to the General Government, the respective rights of 
General and State Governments were but illy defined; and so far 
as this State was concerned, especially, a collision was had. As 
early as April, 1784, the Legislature of this State passed an act, 
making the Governor and a Board of commissioners the Superin- 
tendents of Indian affairs. The commissioners designated were : — 
Abraham Cuyler, Peter Schuyler, Henry Glen, who associated with 
them, Philip Schuyler, Robert Yates, Abraham Ten Broeck, A. 
Yates, jr., P. W. Yates, John J. Beekman, Mathew Vischer, Gen. 
Ganesvoort. Governor George Clinton, as the head of the Board, 
assumed the laboring oar of negotiation. The services of the mis- 

NoTE— Had a different course been pursued, the Indians would have called to 
their aid some of the western nations, and prolonged tlie war. The venerable chief 
Bla;cksnake, now an hundred years old, residing upon the Allegany Reservation, in- 
sists that the Six Nations went to the treaty of Fort Stanwix, not as a conquered 
oeople sueing for peace, but with arms in their hands. 



PHELPS AND GORHMl's PUECHASE. 101 

sionary, the Rev. Mr. Kirkland, of Peter Ryckman, Jacob Reed, 
James Deane, Major Fonda, Col. Wemple, Major Fry, Col. Van 
Dyke, — most of whom had been Indian traders or captives — were 
enlisted. Peter Ryckman became to the Board, a species of 
" winged Mercury," flying from locality to locality — now at Oneida, 
then at Kanadesaga, then at Niagara, consulting with Brant ; and 
next at Albany, reporting the result of his conferences with the 
statesmen and diplomatists of the forest. The time and place 
of a treaty was partially agreed upon. 

In the mean time, Congress had contemplated a general treaty 
with the Indians, bordering upon the settlements in New York, 
Pennsylvania and Ohio ; and had appointed as its commissioners, 
Oliver Wolcott, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee. A correspond- 
ence took place between the New York Board and the Commis- 
sioners of the United States, in which the question of jurisdiction, 
the respective rights to treat with the Indians, was seriously involv- 
ed. The New York Commissioners found the Indians generally 
averse to treating with a State, but generally disposed to meet the 
" Thirteen Fires," and hold a treaty of peace jointly with their 
people of some of the western nations. Most of the spring and 
summer of 1784, was consumed by endeavors of the New York 
Board to get a council of the Six Nations convened. On the first 
of September, they met at Fort Schuyler — deputies from the Mo- 
hawks, Cayugas, Onondagas and Senecas. The Oneidas and Tus- 
caroras held back ; but deputations from them, were brought in by 
runners on the third day. The deputies of these two nations were 
first addressed by Governor Clinton. He assured them of a dis- 
position to be at peace ; disclaimed any intention to deprive them 
of their lands ; proposed a settlement of boundaries ; and warned 
them against disposing of their lands to other than commissioners 
regularly appointed by the State of New York, who would treat 
with them for lands, when they were disposed to sell them. In re- 
ply to this speech, a delegate of the two nations expressed their 
gratification that the war had ended, and that they could now meet 
and " smoke the pipe of peace." " You have come up," said he, 
" what has been an untrodden path to you for many years ; and 
this path which you have seen as you have come along, has been 
strewed with blood. We, therefore, in our turn, console your loss- 
es and sorrows during these troublesome times. We rejoice that 



102 PHELPS AISTD GORHAm's PtJECHASE. 

you have opened the path of peace to this country." He thanked 
the commissioners for their advice to the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, 
not to Usten to individuals who proposed the purchase of their 
lands. 

At this stage of the council, the .Cayuga and Tuscarora chiefs 
exhibited a letter from the commissioners of Congress. The letter 
was read. It informed the Indians that they, the commissioners, 
were appointed by Congress " to settle a general peace with all the 
Indian nations, from the Ohio to the Great Lake " — that the Gov- 
ei'nor of New York had no authority from Congress ; but as he had 
invited the Indians to assemble at Fort Stanwix, on the 20th of 
September, the commissioners, to save the trouble of two councils, 
would alter the determination of holding their council at Niagara, 
and meet them at For Stanwix on the day named. 

Gov. Clinton next addressed the " Sachems and warriors of the 
Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas." He assured them 
that what was a colony had become a State ; that he and his friends 
had met them to open the paths of peace, to establish that friendly 
relation that existed between the Indians and their white neighbors 
previous to the war. Some passages of the Governor's speech was 
as truly eloquent as any thing that will be found among our State 
records. He said : " The council fires which was lighted both at 
Albany and Onondaga by our ancestors and those of the Six Na- 
tions, which burned so bright, and shone with so friendly a light 
over our common country, has unhappily been almost extinguished 
by the late war with Great Britain. I now gather together at this 
place the remaining brands, add fresh fuel, and with the true spirit 
of reconciliation and returning friendship, rekindle the fire, in hopes 
that no future events may ever arise to extinguish it ; but that you 
and we, and the offspring of us both, may enjoy its benign influence 
as long as the sun shall shine, or waters flow." In reference to 
the letters of the commissioners of Congress, he assured tliem that 
their business was with Indians residing out of any State ; but that 
New York had a right to deal with those residing within her boun- 
daries. 

The answer to the Governor's speech was made by Brant. He 
said that " it meets with our dispositions and feelings of our minds." 
In reference to the respective claims of Congress and New York 
to treat with the Indians, he thought it strange that " there should 



PHELPS AND GORHAM's PUECHASE. 103 

be two bodies to manage the same business." Several speeches 
followed, Brant and Cornplanter being the spokesmen of the Indi- 
ans. The utmost harmony prevailed ; the Indian orators treating 
all subjects adroitly, manifesting a disposition to make a treaty, but 
evidently intending to stave off any direct action, until they met 
in council the U. S. Commissioners. To a proposition from Gov. 
Clinton, that the State of New York would look for a cession of 
lands to help " indemnify them for the expenses and sacrifices of 
the war;" they replied, admitting the justice of the claim, but say- 
ing they were peace ambassadors, and had no authority to dispose 
of lands. The council broke up after distributing presents, and 
leaving the Indians a supply of provisions for subsistence while 
waiting to meet the U. S. Commissioners. 

The treaty of Fort Stanwix followed, conducted by the United 
States Commissioners, Oliver Wolcott, Richard Butler, and Arthur 
Lee. No record of the proceedings exist in our public archives ; 
the general result is however known. Terms of peace were con- 
cluded ; the western boundaries of the Six Nations were so fixed 
as to enlarge the " carrying place" on the Niagai'a river they had 
previously ceded to the King of Great Britian, and starting from 
the mouth of Buffalo Creek, was- to be a line running due south to 
the northern boundary of Pennsylvania ; thence west to the end of 
said boundary ; thence south along the west boundary of said State 
to the river Ohio. The treaty was effected with considerable diffi- 
culty, a large number of the Indians insisting that it should be gen- 
eral, and embrace the western Indians, so that all questions of boun- 
daries could be settled at once. Brant was absent, transacting 
some business with the Governor of Canada. Had he been present, 
it is doubtful whether any treaty would have been concluded. Red 
Jacket, then a youth, made his first public speech, and as Levasseur, 
(who derived his information from La Fayette,) says : — "His speech 
was a masterpiece, and every warrior who heard him, was carried 

Note. — La Fayette was present at tbo treaty of Fort Stanwix. After the lapse of 
forty years, the generous Frenchman, the coinpanion of "Washington, and tlie Seneca 
orator, again met. The author was present at the inteiTiew. A concourse of citizens 
had been assembled for nearly two days, awaiting tlie amval of the steam boat from 
Dunkirk, which had been chartered by the committee of Erie county, to convey La 
Fayette to Buffalo, and among them was Red Jacket. He made, as usual, a somewhat 
ostentatious display of his medal — a gift from Wasliingion — and it required the es- 
pecial attention of a select committee to keep the aged chief fi'om an indulgence — 
a "sin that so easy beset him," — which would have marred the dignity if not the 



104 PHELPS AXD GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

away with his eloquence." He strongly protested against ceding 
away the hunting grounds of his people at the west, and boldly 
advocated a renewal of the war. The better councils of Corn- 
planter, however, prevailed. The so highly extolled eloquence of 
Red Jacket, had little in it of practicability. The Six Nations 
agreed to surrender all of their captives, most of whom had been 
brought to the treaty ground for that purpose. The commissioners 
in behalf of the United States, guaranteed to the Six Nations the 
quiet possession of the lands they occupied, which was recognized 
as embracing all of New York, west of cessions they had made 
under English dominion. 

The next council of the commissioners of New York, after the 
one that has been named, was convened at Fort Herkimer, in June 
1785. This was with the Oneidas and Tuscaroras. Gov. Clinton 
made an opening speech in which, after defining their rights, and 
advising them that the State held the exclusive right to purchase, 
informed them that it was understood they were prepared to sell 
some of their lands south of the Unadilla ; and if so, the commis- 
sioners were ready to purchase. After nearly two days delibera- 
tion, the Governor's speech was replied to by " Petrus, the minis- 
ter." The orator said his people were averse to parting with lands 
— alluded to the frauds that had been practiced upon the Mohawks 
before the Revolution ; said " the German Flats people when they 
were poor, applied to us for lands and they were friends ; but now 
they are rich, they do not use us kindly." The speech was one of 
consummate ability ; especially did the chief turn the tables upon the 
Governor, in a frequent allusicn to his former advice to the Indians 
to keep their lands. Days of deliberation and speech making suc- 
ceeded, the Indians making propositions to lease a small quantity of 
land, then to sell a small quantity of their poorest lands, but failing 



romance of the intended interview. The reception, the ceremonies generallj, were 
upon a staging erected in front of " Rathbun's Eagle." After they were through -with, 
Red Jacket wa.s escorted upon the staging, by a committee. " The Douglass in liis 
hall," — himself in his native forest — never walked with a firmer step or a prouder 
bearing ! There was the stoicism of the Indian — seemingly, the condecension, if it 
existed, was liis, and not the "Nation's Guest." He addressed the General in his 
native tongue, thrciugh an interpreter who was present. During.thcinter\iew, La Fay- 
ette not recognizing him, alluded to the treaty of Fort Stauwix : "And what" said 
he, " has become of the j'oung Seneca, who on that occasion so eloquently opposed 
the burying of tlie tomahawk ? " "He is now before you," repUcd Red Jackets The 
circumstance, as the reader will infer, revived in the mind of La Fayette, the scenes 
of the Revolution, and in his journey the next two days, his conversation was enrich- 
ed by the reminiscences which it called up. 



PHELPS AND GORHAIVIS PURCHASE. lOo 

to come up to what the commissioners required. In a speech made 
by the Grasshopper, he alluded to the attempt the British agents 
made during the war, to induce the Tuscaroras and Oneidas to join 
them. He said : — "They told us by joining the Americans, w^e would 
get lice, as they were only a lousy people ; but however, although 
they expressed the Americans were lousy, they have although lousy, 
overcome their enemies." 

The commissioners finally succeeded in purchasing the land lyino- 
between the Unadilla and Chenango Rivers, south of a line drawn 
east and west through those streams, and north of the Pennsylva 
nia line, &c., for which they paid $11,500, and distributed among 
them a liberal amount of goods, trinkets and provisions. In finally 
announcing the conclusion to sell the land, the Grasshopper said : — 
" This news about selling our lands will make a great noise in the 
Six Nations, when they hear we have sold so much ; and therefore 
we hope we shall not be applied to any more for any of our country." 
How was the future curtained before the simple backwood's diplo- 
matist ! Little did he think that the narrow strip of land thus 
grudgingly and unwillingly parted with, would be added -to, and 
widened out, until his people were mostly shorn of their broad pos- 
sessions ! 

Here, in the order of time, it becomes necessary to notice two 
hindrances that were interposed to temporarily delay the prehmin- 
ary measures for the advance of settlem.ent westward from the 
lower valley of the Mohawk, after the Revolution : — The Kings 
of England and France were either poor geographers, or very 
careless in their grants of territory in the new world. They gran- 
ted what they never possessed, paid very httle attention to each 
other's rights, and created cross or conflicting claims. In the year 
1G20, the King of Great Britain, granted to the Plymouth Compa- 
ny a tract of country denominated New England, extending several 
degrees of latitude north and South, and from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific ocean, east and west. A charter for the government of a 
portion of this territory, granted by Charles I., in 1G28, was vacated 
in 1684, but a second charter was granted by William and Mary 
1691. The territory comprised in this second charter, extended on 
the Atlantic ocean, from north latitude 42° 2, to 44° 15, and from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. Charles I., in 16G3, granted to the 
.Duke of York and Albany, the province of New York, including 



106 PHELPS AND GOEHAM'S PUECHASE. 

the present State of New Jersey. The tract thus granted extended 
from a line twenty miles east of the Hudson river, westward, rather 
indefinitely, and from the Atlantic ocean north, to the south line of 
Canada, then a French province. 

By this collision of description, each of these colonies, (after- 
wards States,) laid claim to the jurisdiction as well as pre-emption 
right of the same land, being a tract sufficiently large to form several 
Spates. The State of New York, however, in 1781, and Massa- 
chusetts, in 1785, ceded to the United States all their rights, either 
of jurisdiction or proprietorship, to all the territory lying west of a 
meridian, line run south from the westeriy bend of Lake Ontario. 
Although the nominal amount in controversy, by these acts, was 
much diminished, it still left some nineteen thousand square miles 
of territory in dispute ; but this controversy was finally settled by a 
convention of commissioners, appointed by the parties, held at 
Hartford, Conn., on the 16th day of December, 1786. According 
to the stipulations entered into by the convention, Massachusetts 
ceded to the State of New York, all her claim to the government, 
sovereigntv and jurisdiction of all the territory lying west ot the 
present'^eastliue of the State of New York ; and New York ceded 
to Massachusetts the pre-emption right, or fee of the land, subject 
to the title of natives, of all that part of the State of New York 
Iving west of a line, beginning at a point in the north line ol Penn- 
syb^mia, 82 miles north of the north-east corner of said State, and 
running 'from thence due north through Seneca Lake, to Lake On- 
tario ; excepting and reserving to the State of New York, a strip 
of land east of, and adjoining the eastern bank of Niagara river, 
one mile wide, and extending its whole length. The land, the pre- 
emption right of which was thus ceded, amounted to about six 
millions of acres. 

The other difficulty alluded to, arose from the organization and 
operations of two joint Lessee Companies. The constitution of the 
state forbade the purchase of the fee in lands of the Indians, by 
individuals, reserving the right to the state alone. To evade this, 
and come in possession of the lands, an association of individuals 
was organized in the winter of 1787, '8, who styled themselves the 
" NewVork Genesee Land Company." The company was com- 
posed of some eighty or ninety individuals, mostly residing upon the 
Hudson; many of whom were wealthy and influential. The prin- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 10 7 

cipal seat of the company was at Hudson. Dr. Caleb Benton, 
John Livingston, and Jared Coffin were the principal managers 
At the same time a branch company was organized in Canada, 
called the " Niagara Genesee Land Company." This consisted of 
John Butler, Samuel Street, John Powell, Johnson and Murphy, and 
Benjamin Barton; all but the last named, being residents of Canada. 
This branch organization enabled the company to avail themselves 
of the then potent influence of Col. John Butler with the Six 
Nations, and the influence of his associates. Benjamin Barton, the 
father of the late Benjamin Barton Jr. of Lewislon, was an active 
member of the association. Soon after the close of the Revolution, 
he had engaged in the Indian trade, and as a drover from New 
Jersey, via. the Susquehannah River, to the British garrison at 
Niagara. By this means he had become well acquainted with the 
Senecas, was adopted by them, and had taken while a youth, Henry 
O'Bail, the son of Cornplanter, and placed him in a school in N. 
Jersey, In addition to the influence thus acquired, there belonged 
to the New York Company, several who had for a long period been 
Indian traders. Thus organized, by such appliances as usually for- 
warded negotiations with the Indians, the company in November, 
1787, obtained a Lease for " nine hundred and ninety nine years," 
of all the lands of the Six Nations in the state of New York, except 
some small reservations, the privilege of hunting, fishing &c. 
The annual rent was to be two thousand Spanish milled dollars ; and 
a bonus of $20,000 was also promised. 

In March, 1788, John Taylor had been appointed an agent of the 
New York board of commissioners, or superintendent of Indian 
affairs. In that month, he was sent to the Indian country to coun- 
teract the unlawful proceedings of the Lessees. On his return he 
reported that he had fallen in with the clerk of an Indian trader, 
just from Tioga, who told him that " Livingston had sent fourteen 
sleighs loaded with goods into the Indian country. They got within 
50 miles of Tioga, and would proceed no farther. That the Sene- 
cas were exceedingly dissatisfied with Livingston, and would not 
abide by the bargain, charging him with having cheated them ; and 
threatened Ryckman for having assisted him in cheating them. 
That near 160 families were at Tioga, with a considerable number 
of cattle, in order to form a settlement on those lands ; but were 
very much at a loss, as they had heard that the state intended 



108 PHELPS AKD GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

that no settlement should be made." Governor Clinton issued a 
proclamation warning purchasers that the Lessee title would be 
annulled, and sent runners to all the Six Nations warning them of 
the fraud that had been practiced against them. 

It was a formidable organization, embracing men of wealth and 
political influence, and those who, if their own plans could not be 
consummated, had an influence with the Indians that would enable 
them to throw serious obstacles in the way of legal negotiations with 
them for their lands. The lease consummated, the next object of the 
association was to procure an act of the legislature sanctioning the 
proceedings, and for that purpose, an attempt was made to intimidate, 
by threats of dismemberment, and the formation of a new state, 
embracing all the leased territory. But the whole matter was met 
with energy and promptness by Gov. George Clinton, who urged 
upon the Legislature measures to counteract the intended mischief. 
In March, 1788, an act was passed which authorised the Governor 
to disregard all contracts made with the Indians, not sanctioned by 
the state as null and void, and to cause all persons who had entered 
upon Indian lands under such contracts, to be driven off" b}^ force, 
and their buildings destroyed. Governor Clinton ordered William 
Colbraith, then Sheriff" of the county of Herkimer,(which then em- 
braced all of the present county of Herkimer and all west of it to 
the west bounds of the state,) to dispossess intruders and burn their 
dwellings. A military force was called out, and the orders strictly 
executed. One of the prominent settlers, and a co-operator of the 
Lessees, was taken to New York in irons, upon a charge of high 
treason. 

Thus baffled, the managers of the two associations determined to 
retaliate and coerce a compromise, if they failed to carry out their 
original design, by meeting the State upon treaty grounds, where 
they could bring a stronger lobby than they could command for 
the halls of legislation. At the treaty, held in Fort Stanwix, in 
September, 1778, with the Onondagas, for the purchase of their 
lands by the State, Governor Clinton took the field in person, back- 
ed by all the official influence he could command ; and yet, he 
found for a while, extreme difficulty in effecting any thing. Little 
opposition from the Lessees showed itself openly, but it was there 
with its strongest appliances. In after years, when preferring a 
claim against the " New York Genesee Company," in behalf of the 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 109 

" Niagara Genesee Company," a prominent individual among the 
claimants, urged that the Canada company had kept the Indians 
back from the treaties ; and when they could no longer do so, had 
on one occasion, baffled Governor Clinton for nearly three weeks. 
Treaties, however, went on, until the State had possessed itself of 
the lands of the Six Nations east of the pre-emption line. The les- 
sees, seeing little hopes of accomplishing their designs, finally peti- 
tioned the legislature for relief; and alter considerable delay, in 
1793, an act was passed, authorizing the commissioners of the land 
office to set off for them from any of the vacant unappropriated 
lands of the State, a tract equal to ten miles square. The allot- 
ment was finally made in township number three, of the " Old Mili- 
tary tract." Thus terminated a magnificent scheme, so far as the 
State was concerned, which contemplated the possession of a vast 
domain, and perhaps, as has been alleged, a separate State organi- 
zation. It marks an important era in the early history of our State. 
The influence brought to bear upon the Indians from Canada, by 
which the extraordinary lease was obtained, was stimulated by 
the prospect of individual gain ; but may we not well infer — with- 
out an implication of the many respectable individuals who com- 
posed the association in this State to that extent — that it looked 
forward to future events ; the maintenance of British dominion, 
which was afterwards asserted and reluctantly yielded. It was 
long after this, before the potent influence which the Johnsons, But- 
ler and Brant had carried with them, even in their retreat to Cana- 
da, was counteracted. They were yet constantly inculcating the 
idea among the Six Nations, that they were under British dominion, 
the Senecas at least. What could better have promoted this pre- 
tension, than such a scheme, especially if it contemplated the ex- 
treme measure of a dismemberment of this State — such as was 
alleged at the time, was embraced in the plan of the two organiza- 
tions ? The calculations of the " New York Genesee Company " 
may have been circumscribed by the boundaries of loss and gain ; 
that of their associates and co-operators may have taken a wider 
range, and embraced national interest, to which it was v/edded by 
ties even stronger if possible, than motives of gain and private 
emolument. As late as November, 1793, 'James Wadsworth and 
Oliver Phelps, received a circular, signed by John Livingston and 
Caleb Benton, as officers of a convention purporting to have been 



110 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

^^■^, 
held at Geneva, urging the people to hold town meetings and sign 
petitions for a new state to be set off from New York, and to em- 
brace the counties of Otsego, Tioga, Herkimer and Ontario. 

Early in the spring of 1788, another council with the Six Na- 
tions was contemplated by the New York commissioners. In an- 
swer to a message from them, requesting the Indians to fix upon a 
time, some of the chiefs answered in a writing, that it must be 
" after the corn is hoed." Massachusetts, not having then parted 
with its pre-emption right west of Seneca Lake, Gov. Clinton 
wrote to Gov. Hancock to secure his co-operation in counter- 
acting the designs of the lessees. The general court declared the 
leases " null and void ;" but Governor Hancock, in his reply to the 
letter, stated that Massachusetts, on account of the " embarrassed 
situation of the Commonwealth," was about to comply wuth the 
proposals of some of her citizens, for the purchase of the pre-emp- 
tion right. 

The first of September was fixed as the period for the treaty, and 
Fort Schuyler was designated as the place. Active preparations 
for it were going on through the summer, under the general super- 
vision of John Taylor, who had the zealous co-operation of Gov. 
Clinton. In all the villages of the Six Nations, the lessees had 
their agents and runners, or Indian traders in their interest. Even 
the Rev. Mr. Kirkland had been either deceived or corrupted by 
them, and had played a part inconsistent with his profession, and 
with his obhgations to Massachusetts. It was represented to Gov. 
Clinton that, in "preaching to the Indians, he had advised them to 
lease to the New York and Canada companies, as their territory 

KoTE. — After the aiTangement with the State, there was a long controversy be- 
tween tlie two associations in settling their affaii^s : in the course of which, much of 
the secret machinery of botli was developed. An old adage was pretty well illustra- 
ted. It no where appears that any thing was paid to the Indians in their national or 
confederate capacities ; though a bonus of twenty thousand dollars was stipulated to 
be paid in addition to the annual rents. The Canada company refused at one timeto 
pay an installmei>t into this general fund, alleging as a reason, the non-payment of 
this twenty thousand dollars due the Indians. But yet, it appears that it was a pretty 
expensive operation ; the chiefs who favored the scheme and the agents who operated 
upon them, must have been well paid ; " presents " must have been as lavish as in the 
palmiest days of British and Indian negotiations. Remonstrances that were presented 
to the Legislature of tliis State, set forth tliat " secret and unwarrantable means had 
been employed by the lessees in making their arrangements with some of the In- 
dians." At a meeting of the "New York Genesee Company," at Hudson, in Sep- 
tember, 17B9, the aggregate expenditures, as liquidated, had been over twelve thou- 
sand pounds, N. E. currency. It will be necessary to refer to this subject again, in 
connection with Indian treaties that followed, and Charles Williamson, 



PURCHASE. Ill 

was so wide, he could not make his voice heard to its full extent ; 
that he could " preach better," if their territory was smaller. At 
the treaty held at Kanadesaga, when the Lease was procured, he had 
acted efficiently for the Lessees. To counteract thosestrong influ- 
ences, agents and runners were put in requisition by the N. Y. 
commissioners ; and during the summer, the poor Indians had but 
little peace. 

The preparations for the embassy to the Indian country, at Al- 
bany and New York, were formidable ones. A similar expedition 
now to Santa Fee, or Oregon, would be attended with less of pre- 
liminary arrangements, A sloop came up from New York with In- 
dian goods, stores for the expedition, marquees and tents, specie for 
purchase money, (which was obtained with much trouble,) those 
of the board of commissioners and their associates, who resided in 
New York, and many who were going to attend the treaty from 
motives of curiosity ; among whom was Count Monsbiers, the then 
French minister, and his sister. 

The board of commissioners and their retinue, started from Al- 
bany on the 23d of August, (the goods and baggage going up the 
Mohawk in batteaux that had been built for the purpose,) and did 
not arrive at Fort Schuyler until the 28th. 

A wild, romantic scene was soon presented. The veteran soldier, 
George Clinton, pitched his marquee, and was as much the General 
as if he had headed a military instead of a civil expedition. Among 
his associates in the commission, and his companions, were many 
who had with him been conspicuous in the Revolution, and were 
the leading men of the then young State. They were surrounded 
by the camp fires of the numerous representatives of the Six Na- 
tions, amounting to thousands, who had been attracted to the spot, 
some from an interest hey felt in the negotiations, but far the lar- 
gest proportion of them had been attracted from their scattered 
wilderness homes, by the hopes and promises of feasts and carous- 
als. Indian traders from all their localities in New York and 
Canada, with their showy goods and trinkets, and "firewater,'' were 
upon the ground with the mixed objects of a sale of their goods, 
when money was paid to the Indians, and the espousal either of 
the State interests or that of the Lessees. Some of the prominent 
Lessees from Albany, Hudson and Canada had preceded the Gov- 
ernor, and were in the crowd, secretly and insidiously endeavoring 



112 PHELPS AIS^D GOEILUl's PURCnASE. 

to thwart the objects of the council. Irritated by all he had heard 
of the machinations of the Lessees, and learning that one of their 
principals, John Livingston, of " Livingston Manor " was present 
— with the concurrence of his associates, Gov. Clinton "took the 
responsibility," as did Gen. Jackson at New Orleans, and ordered 
him in writing, to " leave in three hours," and " retire to the dis- 
tance of forty miles from Fort Schuyler. 

After this. Governor Clinton organized a species of court, or 
inquest, and summoning Indians, Indian traders, runners in the 
interest of both State and Lessees, took affidavits of all that had 
transpired in procuring the long lease. It exposed a connected 
scheme of bribery, threats, intimidation and deception, practiced 
upon the Indians. Finding that the Senecas were holding back 
from the treaty, and that many of the head men of the Cayugas and 
Onondagas were absent, and learning that there was a counter 
gathering at Kanadesaga, messengers were sent there, who found 
Dr. Benton surrounded by Indians and his agents, dealing out liquor 
and goods, and delivering speeches, in which he assured the Indians 
that if they went to Fort Schuyler the Governor of New York 
would either cheat them out of their lands, or failing in that, would 
fall upon them with an armed force. Many of the Indians were 
undeceived, and finally induced to go to Fort Schuyler, when they 
had recovered from a state of beastly intoxication they had been 
kept in by Dr. Benton and other agents of the Lessees. Such had 
been the excesses into which they were betrayed, to keep them 
away from the treaty, that many of them, when becoming sober 
were sick and unable to reach Fort Schuyler ; and a Cayuga chief, 
Spruce Carrier, died on the road. When they were encamped at 
Scawyace, twelve miles east of Seneca Lake, on the eastern trail, 
Debartzch, a French trad; r at Cashong, in the interest of the Lessees, 
went there, and by intimidations, the use of rum, and promises of 
presents, induced them to turn back. 

It was not until the 8th of September that the different Nations 
were so far represented as to warrant the proceeding to the business 
of the council. Governor Clinton addressed the Onondagas, inform- 
ing them minutely of the positions in which the Six Nations stood 
in reference to their lands : that they were theirs to dispose of 
.when they pleased, but that to protect them from frauds, the State 
had reserved to itself the right to purchase whenever they were 



PUECHASE. 113 

disposed to sell. He told them that the acts of the Lessees, were 
the acts of "disobedient children" of the State, and that they were 
a "cheat," and at the same time informing them that as commis- 
sioners of the State, he and his associates were there prepared to. 
purchase. He cautioned them to keep sober, as there were stran- 
gers present, " who will laugh at us if while this business is in agi- 
tation, any of us should be found disguised," " After the business 
is completed," said the Governor, "we can indulge ourselves in 
innocent mirth and friendship together." Black Cap, in behalf ot 
the Onondagas, replied, assuring the Governor that the Onondagas 
wholly disapproved of the proceedings with the Lessees, had made 
up their minds to sell to the State, but wanted a little farther time 
to talk among themselves. On the 12th, the treaty was concluded, 
and the deed of cession of the lands of the Onondagas, some res- 
ervations excepted, was executed. The consideration vv^as $1000 
in hand, and an annuity of $500 forever. After the treaty was 
concluded, additional provisions were distributed, presents of goods 
made, and congratulatory speeches interchanged. " As the business 
on which we had met, said the Governor, is now happily accomplish- 
ed, we shall cover up the council fire at this time and take a drink, 
and smoke our pipes together, and devote the remainder of the day 
to decent mirth." 

It should be observed, that this council was called for the double 
purpose of. perpetuating friendship with the Six Nations, and pur- 
chasing lands. Though New York had ceded the pre-emption 
right to the lands of the Senecas, to Massachusetts, still, it was de- 
sirable that the Senecas should be present. Most of their chiefs 
and head men were kept away, but about eighty young Seneca 
warriors and women were on the ground, occupying the ruins of 
the old Fort. The governor addressed them, distributed among 
them some provisions and liquor, and desired them to go back to 
their nation and report all they had seen, and warn their people 
against having any thing to do with the Lessees. A young Seneca 
warrior in his reply said : — " We had to struggle hard to break 
through the opposition that was made to our coming down, by some 
of your disobedient children. We will now tell you how things 
really are among us. The voice of the birds,* and proud, strong 



' Vague rumors, and falsehoods, were called by the Senecas, " the voice of birds." 



114: PHELPS AOT) GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 

words uttered by some of our own people at Kanadesaga, overcome 
the sachems and turned them back, after they had twice promised 
to come down with us." 

Negotiations with the Oneidas followed : — Gov. Clinton made a 
speech to them to the same purport of the one he had delivered to 
the Onondagas. This was replied to by " One-yan-ha, alias Beach 
Tree, commonly called the " Quarter Master," who said an answer 
to the speech should be made after his people had counselled to- 
gether. The next day, just as the council had assembled, word 
came that a young warrior was found dead in Wood Creek. It 
was concluded after some investigation, that he had been drowned ac- 
cidentally, in a state of intoxication. The commissioners insisted 
upon going on with the treaty, but the Indians demanded a postpone- 
ment for funeral observances. At the burial, A-gwel-en-ton-gwas, 
alias, Domine Peter, or Good Peter, made a pathetic harrangue, 
eloquent in some of its passages. It was a temperance, but not 
a total abstinence discourse. 

The funeral over, the business of the council was resumed. Good 
Peter rephed to the speech of the Governor : — He reminded him 
of a remark made by him at Fort Herkimer in 1785, in substance, 
that he should not ask them for any more lands. The chief recapitula- 
ted in a long speech, with surprising accuracy, every point in the 
Govei'nor's speech, and observed that if any thing had been omitted, 
it was because he had not " the advantage of the use of letters." 
He then made an apology, that he was fatigued, and wished to sit 
down and rest; and that in the meantime, according to ancient 

Note. — The backwoods spiritual and temporal ad^aser, insisted that his people 
must abide \>y the resolution of their chief, which forbid any of them asking the Gov- 
ernor or commissioners for rum, but only to take it when it was offered and measured 
out to tliem. " We are not fit " said he, "to prescribe as to this article. Some who 
are great drinkers have often given in both women and children in their list, and 
drawn for the whole company as warriors, and thereby increased the quantity beyond 
all reasonable bounds. Let the Governor therefore determine, if he sees fit to give a 
glass in the morning, and at noon, and then at night ; and if any remain after each 
one is served, let it be taken off tlie ground. This was the ancient custom at Albany 
in the days of our forefathers, when a great numljer of Indians were assembled on 
the hill above the city. Tlie rum was brought there and eacli one drank a glass and 
was satisfied. No true Indian who had the spirit of a man, was ever known at that 
day to run to a commissioner and demand a bottle of rum, on the ground that he was 
a great man, and another too, for the same reason, which is the practice now-a-days ; 
no such great men were known in ancient happy times." 

[Good Peter's temperance exhortation, is similar to that of the Scotch divine : — 
"My dear hearers," said he, "it is a' well to take a drap on getting up of a raornin, 
a little afore dinner and supjDer, and a little on ganging to bed ; but dinna be "dram, 
dram, di-ammiug."] 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 115 

custom, another speaker would arise and raise the spirit of their de- 
ceased sachem, the Grasshopper. But before he sat down, he in- 
formed the Governor, that the man bearing the name of Oe-dat-segh- 
ta, is the first name know in their national council, and had loner 
been publised throughout the confederacy ; that his friend, the Grass- 
hopper, was the counsellor for the tribe, to whom that name be- 
longed, and that therefore, they replaced the Grasshopper with this 
lad, whom you are to call Kan-y-a-dal-i-go ; presenting the young 
lad to the Governor and Commissioners ; and that until he arrives 
at an age to qualify him to transact business personally, in council, 
their friend, Hans Jurio, is to bear the name of 0-jis-tal-a-be, alias 
Grasshopper, and to be counsellor for this young man and his clan, 
until that period. 

The Governor made a speech, in which he disclaimed any desire 
on the part of the State to purchase their lands ; but strenuously 
urged upon them that the State would not tolerate the purchase or 
leasing by individuals. He told them that when they chose to sell 
the State would buy more for their good than anything else, as the 
State then had more land than it could occupy with people. 

Good Peter followed, said the Governor's speech was excellent, 
and to their minds. " We comprehend every word of your speech, 
it is true indeed ; for we see you possessed of an extensive territo- 
ry, and but here and there a s7noke." " But," said he, " we, too, 
have disorderly people in our nation ; you have a keg here, and 
they have their eyes upon it, and nothing can divert them from the 
pursuit of it. While there is any part of it left, they will have their 
eyes upon it and seek after it, till they die by it ; and if one dies, 
there is another who will not be deterred by it, will still continue to 
seek after it. It is just so with your people. As long as any spot 
of our excellent land remains, they will covet it, and will never 
rest till they possess it." He said it would take him a long time to 
tell the Governor " all his thoughts and contemplations ; they were 
extensive ; my mind is perplexed and pained, it labors hard." In a 
short digression, he spoke of the Tree of Peace, and expressed his 
fears that, " by-and-by, some twig of this beautiful tree will be 
broken off. The wind seems always to blow, and shake this belov- 
ed tree." Before sitting down. Good Peter observed that they had 
all agreed to place the business of the council, on their part, in the 
hands of two of their people, Col. Louis and Peter Ot-se-quette, 



116 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUKCHASE. 

who would be their " mouth and their ears." * There was, also, ap- 
pointed, as their advisers, a committee of principal chiefs. 

The negotiation went on for days ; speeches were interchanged ; 
propositions were made and rejected, until finally a deed of cession 
was agreed upon and executed by the chiefs. It conveyed all their 
lands, making reservations for their own residence around the Onei- 
da castle, or principal village, and a number of other smaller ones 
for their own people, and such whites as had been their interpret- 
ers, favorite traders, or belonged to them by adoption. The con 
sideration was $2,000 in money, 82,000 in clothing and other 
goods, 81,000 in provisions, $500 in money for the erection of a 
saw-mill and grist-mill on their reservation, and an annuity of " six 
hundred dollars in silver," for ever. Congratulatory addresses fol 
lowed ; the Governor making to the Oneidas a parting address, re- 
plete with good instruction and fatherly kindness ; the Oneidas re- 
plying, assuring him of the satisfaction of their people with all that 
had taken place ; and thanking the Governor and his associate 
commissioners for the fairness of their speeches and their conduct. 
It would be difficult to find a record of diplomacy between civilized 
nations more replete throughout with dignity, decorum and ability, 
than is that of this protracted treaty. 

After dispatching the Rev. Mr. Kirkland (who had been present 
throughout the treaty, and materially aided the commissioners; 
thus making full amends for the mischief he had helped to produce 
in connection with the long lease,) to the Cayugas and Senecas, 
charged with the mission of informing them of all that had trans- 
pired, the Governor and his retinue set out on their return to Al- 
bany. The council had continued for twenty-five days. 

The next meeting of the commissioners was convened at Albany, 
December 15, 1788. Governor Clinton read a letter from Peter 
Ryckman and Seth Reed, who were then residents at Kanadesaga ; 
Reed at the Old Castle, and Ryckman upon the Lake shore. The 

* Col. Louis was a half blood, French and Oneida. He had held a commission un- 
der Gov. Clinton, in the Revolution. Peter Ot-se-qiictte, in a speech he made in the 
council, said thathe had just returned from France, where he had been taken and edu- 
cated by La Fayette. He said that when he arrived in France, he " was naked, and 
the Marquis clad liim, receiving and treating him with great kindness ;" that for a 
year, he was restless; and "when the hght of knowledge flowed in on his mind, he 
felt distressed at the miserable situation of his countrymen ;" that after four years' 
absence, he had returned witli the intention of enlightening and reforming them. 
See Appendix, No. 4. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 117 

letter was forwarded by " Mr. Lee and Mr. Noble," who had been 
residing for the summer at Kanadesaga. The writers say to the 
Governor, that the bearers of the letter will detail to him all that 
has transpired in their locality ; and add, that if required, they can 
induce the Cayugas and Senecas to attend a council. The Rev. 
Mr. Kirkland gave, in writing, an account of his mission. He 
stated that on arriving at Kanadesaga, he ascertained that to keep 
the Cayugas back from the treaty at Fort Schuyler, two of the 
principal lessees and their agents, had " kept them in a continued 
state of intoxication for three weeks ;" that " Dr. B. and Col. M, 
had between twenty and thirty riflemen in arms for twenty-four 
hours ; and gave out severe threats against P. Ryckman and Col, 
Reed, for being enemies to their party, and friends to the govern- 
ment, in persuading the Indians to attend the treaty at Fort 
Schuyler." Mr. Kirkland stated that he had been as far as Nia- 
gara, and seen Col. Butler ; and that at the Seneca village, on Buf- 
falo Creek, he had seen Shen-dy-ough-gwat-te, the " second man 
of influence among the Senecas;" and Farmer's Brother, alias 
" Ogh-ne-v/i-ge-was ;" and that they had become disposed to treat 
with the State. Before the Board adjourned, it was agreed to ad- 
dress a letter to Reed and Ryckman, asking them to name a day on 
which they could procure the attendance of the Cayugas and 
Senecas, at Albany. Reed and Ryckman, on the reception of the 
letter, despatched James Manning Reed with an answer, saying 
that they would be at Albany, with the Indians, on the 23d oi 
January ; and adding, that the lessees kept the Indians " so continu- 
ally intoxicated with liquor, that it is almost impossible to do any 
thing with them." 

It was not until the 11th of Febuary however, that Mr. Ryck- 
man was enabled to collect a sufficient number of Indians, and reach 
Albany. Several days were spent in some preliminary proceedings, 
and in waiting for the arrival of delegations that were on the way. 
On the 14th, James Bryan and Benjamin Birdsall, two of the 
Lessees appeared before the commissioners and delivered up the 
"long leases" that had occasioned so much trouble. On the 19th 



Note. — Gov. Clinton and many of the commissioners resided in New York. As an 
illustration of the then slow passage down the Hudson, they resolved at Albany to 
charter a sloop, and thus be enabled to settle theii- accounts and arrange lieir papers 
on their way dovm the river. 



118 PHELPS AOT) GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

the council was opened with the Cayugas, many Senecas, Onon- 
dao-as and Oneidas, being present. Good Peter in behalf of the 
Cayugas, made a speech. He said his brothers, the Cayugas and 
Senecas had " requested him to be their mouth." As upon another 
occasion his speech abounded in some of the finest figures of speech 
to be found in any preserved specimens of Indian eloquence. In 
allusion to the conduct of the Le'ssees, and a long series of precedent 
difficulties the Indians had had with the whites, he observed : — 
" Let us notwithstanding, possess our minds in peace ; we can see 
but a small depth into the heart of man ; we can only discover what 
comes from his tongue." Speaking of the relations that used to 
exist between his people and the old colony of New York, he said, 
they " used to kindle a council fire, the smoke of w hich reached the 
heavens, and around which they sat and talked of peace." He 
said in reference to the blessings 'of peace, and the settled state of 
things that was promised by fixing the Indians upon their Reserva- 
tions, under the protection of the state : — " Our little ones can now 
go with leisure to look for fish in the streams, and our warriors to 
hunt for wild beasts in the woods." Present at the council, 
was a considerable number of their women, whom Good Peter 
called " Governesses," and gave the reasons why they were there. — ■ 
" The Rights of women," found in him an able advocate : — " Our 
ancestors considered it a great transgression to reject the counsel 
of the women, particularly the Governesses ; they considered them 
the mistresses of the soil. They said, who brings us forth ? 
Who cultivates our lands ? Who kindles our fires, and boils our 
pots, but the women ? Our women say let not the tradition of the 
fathers, with respect to women, be disregarded ; let them not be des- 
pised ; God is their maker." 

Several other speeches intervening, the Governor answered the 
speech of Good Peter ; — He reviewed the bargain the Indians had 
made with the Lessees, and told them that if carried out it would 
be to their ruin; explained the laws of the state, and their tendency 
to protect them in the enjoyment of a sufficient quantity of land for 
their use ; and to guard them against peculation and fraud. In re- 
plying to that part of Good Peter's speech in reference to the 
women and their rights, the venerable Governor was in a vein of 
gallantry, eloquently conceding the immunities that belonged to 
the " mothers of mankind." He told them they should have re- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 119 

servations " large enough however prolific they might be ; even if 
they should increase their nation to its ancient state and num- 
bers." He apologised to the dusky sisterhood by saying that he 
"was advanced in years, unaccustomed to address their sex in pub- 
lic ;" and therefore they " must excuse the imperfections of his 
speech." 

Other speeches, and days of negotiation followed. On the 25th 
of February, all the preliminaries being settled, the Cayugas ceded 
to the state all of their lands, excepting a large reservation of 100 
square miles. The consideration was $500 in hand, $1,628 in June 
following, and an annuity of $500 for ever. 

In a congratulatory address, after the treaty was concluded. Gov. 
Clinton recapitulated all of its terms, and observed : — " Brothers 
and sisters ! when you reflect that you had parted with the whole of 
your country, (in allusion to the long lease,) without reserving a 
spot to lay down, or kindle a fire on ; and that you had disposed of 
your lands to people whom you had no means to compel to pay 
what they had promised, you will be persuaded that your brothers 
and sisters whom you have left at home, and your and their children, 
will have reason to rejoice at the covenant you have now made, 
which not only saves you from impending ruin, but restores you to 
peace and security." 

The three treaties, that had thus been concluded, had made the 
state the owners of the soil of the Military Tract, or the principal 
amount of territory now included in the counties of Cayuga, Onon- 
daga, Seneca, Tompkins, Cortland, and parts of Oswego and Wayne. 
Other cessions followed until the large reservations were either 
ceded entirely away, or reduced to their present narrow limits. 

The deed of cession of the Cayugas stipulated that the state 
should convey to their " adopted child," Peter Ryckman, " whom 
they desire shall reside near them and assist them," a tract on the 



ISoTE. — This tract was boimdecl on the Lake and extended back to the old we- 
emption hne erabracnig mast of the present site of Geneva. By sale, or some after 
an-angement he patent was issued to " Reed and Ryck.nan." It wonld seem by this 
cession that the Cayugas claimed west as far as the old i^re-emption hne but the r 
ownership, as it was afterwards shewn, did not extend west of Seneca Lake The • 
ancient boundary was a line nmning due. south from the head of Great Sodus Bay 
Good Peter as the " mouth" of tlie Cayngas, alluding to tlie obligations they wS 
under to Peter Ryckman, said ^hey " wanted his dish made large," for they expected 
to put then- spoons m it when tliey were hungry." This probably had reference to 
some promises on the part of Ryckman. j ">iu it.iLience lo 



120 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PUECHASE. 

west side of Seneca Lake, which should contain sixteen thousand 
acres, the location being designated. 

Soon after the treaty of Albany, the superintendency of Indian 
affairs principally devolved upon John Taylor, as the agent of the 
board of commissioners. Although the treaty had seemed amica- 
ble and satisfactory, a pretty strong faction of all three of the na- 
tions treated with, had kept back, and became instruments for the 
use of designing whites. Although the Lessees had surrendered 
their leases, they did not cease, through their agents and Indian 
traders in their interest to make trouble, by creating dissatisfaction 
among the Indians ; probably, with the hopes of coercing the State 
to grant them remuneration. Neither Brant, Red Jacket, Farmer's 
Brother, and in fact but few of the influential chiefs had attended 
the treaties. Harrassed for a long period, a bone of contention, 
first bet\veen the French and the English, then between the Eng- 
hsh and colonists of New York during the Revolution, and lastly, 
between the State of New York and the Lessees, the Six Nations 
had become cut up into contending factions, and their old land 
marks of government and laws, the ancient well defined immuni- 
ties of their chiefs, obliterated. Dissatisfaction, following the trea- 
ties, found ready and willing promoters in the persons of the gov- 
ment officers of Canada, and the loyalists who had sought refuge 
there, during the border wars of the Revolution. When the first at- 
tempt was made to survey the lands, a message was received by Gov, 
Chnton, from some of the malcontents, threatening resistance, but 
an answer from the Governor, stating the consequence of such re- 
sistance, intimidated them. At an Indian council at Niagara, Col. 
Butler said the Oneidas were " a poor despicable set of Indians, 
w4io had sold all their country to the Governor of New York, and 
had dealt treacherously with their old friends." 

When the period approached for paying the first annuity, the 
Onondagas through an agent, represented to Gov. Clinton, that 
they had " received four strings of wampum from the Senecas, for- 
bidding their going to Fort Stanwix to receive the money ; and in- 
forming them that the Governor of Quebec, wanted their lands ; 
Sir John, (Johnson, it is presumed,) wanted it ; Col. Butler wants 
the Cayuga's lands ; and the commanding officer of Fort Niagara 
wants the Seneca's lands." The agent in behalf of the Governor, 
admonished them to " keep their minds in peace," assured them of 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 121 

the Governor's protection; and told them the Lessees v/ere the 
cause of all their trouble. 

The Cayugas sent a message to the Governor, informing him 
that they were "threatened with destruction, even with total exter- 
mu^ation. The voice comes from the west ; its sound is terrible ; 
it bespeaks our death. Our brothers the Cayugas, and Onondagas 
are to share the same fate." They stated that the cause of co'm- 
plamt was that they had " sold their lands without consulting the 
western tribes. This has awakened up their resentment to such a 
degree, that they determined in full council, at Buffalo creek, that 
we shall be deprived of our respective reserves, with our lives in 
the bargain. This determination of the western tribes, our Gov- 
ernor may depend upon. It has been communicated to the super- 
mtendent of Indian affairs- at Quebec, who as we are told, makes no 
objections to their wicked intentions, hut rather countenances them " 
They appealed to the Governor to fulfill his promises of protection. 
Replies were made, in which the Indians were told they should 
be protected. As one source of complaint was, that some Cayuo-as 
^^•ho resided at Buffalo creek, had not been paid their share of 3ie 
purchase money. The Governor advised that they should make a 
fan- distribution ; and warned them against the Lessees, and all 
other malign influences. 

Among the mischief makers, was a Mr. Peter Penet, a shrewd, 
artful Frenchman, who had been established among the Oneidas 
as a trader; and whom Gov. Chnton had at first favored and cm- 
ployed in Indian negotiations. But ingratiating himself in the good 
will of the natives, he became ambitious, represented himself as 
the ambassador of France, as the friend of La Fayette, char-ed bv 
him with looking to the interest of the Indians ; and finally, <^ot the 



FoTE.— The part that the Senecas ^^ere persuaded to take in promotinc^ these cm 
SsThe SlT f ^'^'"^f/^ inconsistent. They had sold a part^f theKSs t„ iL 
roSntS fn tl "?' ^^1 ,^°"tconsultmg other nations, to say nothing? of their hav hS 
qtnv T^,<- fl "'''" ^^'^'^' was afar wor.se bargain than those made by the 

State But the mam promoters of the troubles, were the Lessees and thS British 
agen s; the lat er of whom, were soured by the result of the Revolution, and wSe ye 
W^T Tll'fl -^^ British re-possession of all. Western, and a part of MiddTweS 
rp™,V.r f f •' ™^«ei;«'''°^^^"'=t of Brant, did not con'espond with his oeneral 

aS t ^ r "7''' ^'''^ ^°"''^^- ^" ^^•^^P*^^ t° f^^ tl^« fl^in^s of discontent" while 
at tlie same time he was almost upon liis own hooks, tiTine to sell to the StatT f !! 
remnant of the Mohawk's lands.^ Interfering betw'een^thf sJate an^ «ie S-^" 
whif?J dissatisfied chiefs to oin him m an in.solent letter to the Gorernor 

^viuch was replied to with a good deal of severity of language. governor. 



122 PHELPS AND GOKIIAll's PUECHASE. 

promises of large kml cessions. Tlnvarted mainly in his designs, 
he became mischievous, and caused much trouble. 

A mere skeleton has thus been given of the events connected 
with the extinguishment of Indian titles, and the measures prehmi- 
narv to the advancement of settlement westward, after he Revo- 
lutimi. It was only after a hard struggle, much of perplexity and 
embarrassment, that the object was accomplished For the honor 
7our whole country, it could be wished, that all Ind.an nego^a- . 
tions and treaties, had been attended with as little of wrong, had 
bee" conducted as fairly as were those under the ausp.ces and 
!eneral direction of George Clinton. Nowhere has the veteran 
tvarrior and statesman, left better proof of his sterling integn y 
and ability, than is furnished by the records of those treaties In 
nocas dS he allow the Indians to be deceived, but stated to them 
Tom n,e to time, with unwearied patience, the true cond, ions o 
he tar^ins they were consummating. The policy he aimed at wa 
Topen all of the beautiful domain of western I. ewlmt, for sale 
md settlemem- to prepare the way for inevitable destiny -and 
■ Uh s n e time secure the Indians in their possessions ; give them 
hleral reservations; and extend over them as a protection, the 

QtvnncT arms of the btate. . 1 1 

The reatie. for lands, found the Six Nations in a miserable con- 

ditln They had warred on -the side of a losing party, for long 

y rs'the field and the chase had been neglected they --e suffer- 

L for food and raiment. Half famished, they flocked o the 

eat e and were fed and clothed. One item of expense charged 

rth account, of the treaty at Albany in nSO. was for horses pa^ 

for, that the Indians had killed and eaten, on 'hc.r way down. For 

several years, in addition to the amount of provisions distributed to 

them at the t;eatics, boat loads of corn were distributed among them 

''l"n" the progress of settlement westward, it will be neces- 
sarv to .1™ a brief- account of the disposition the State made of lands 
::^d e°ci of the Six Nations, bordering upon *e Genesee Country^ 
They constituted what is known as the Military Tract. To pi otect 

•Tlie years 1789, -90, i, »"Pr«l « •'-%r„rXSif Sf iSrSb/fte 
record „/l<-gi«on^ -Wb tLat larij ,^"»™f j/ £ J^^Sg tta >vllit« mhjmt^ 
State, aud distributed, not only among the IndianB, oni 6 

of several counties. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 123 

the frontiers of this State from the incursions of the British and their 
Indian allies, the State of New York, throwu upon its own resour- 
ces, in 1779 and 'bO, enlisted two regiments to serve three years 
unless sooner discharged. They were to be paid and clothed at 
the expense of the United States ; but the State pledged to them a 
liberal bounty in land. To redeem this pledge, as soon as Indian 
titles were extinguished, the surveyor General was instructed to 
survey these bounty lands and prepare them tor the location of 
warrants. The survey was completed in 1790. It embraced about 
two million eight hundred thousand acres, in six hundred acre lots 
The tract comprised all the territory within the present boundaries 
of Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Cortland, and a part of Oswego 
Wayne and Tompkins. A large district of country adjoining on 
the east was thus put in the way of being settled, about the same 
period that sales and settlement commenced west of the pre-emp- 
tion line, though it did not progress as rapidly. Land titles were in 
dispute, and emigrants chose to push on farther, where titles were 
indisputable. Speculation and fraud commenced as soon as the 
patents were issued, a majority of those who it was intended the 
bounty of the State should benefit, sold their right for a trifle * and 
some were defrauded out of the whole. By the time that settle- 
ment commenced, there were few lots, the title to which, was not 
contested. In addition to other questions of title, the officers' and 
soldiers wives, held in a large majority of cases, the right of dower 
l.and titles upon the whole military tract, were not finally settled 
until about 1800, when a committee appointed by the Legislature, 
tTe'woI '^^' '^' ^''' ^'"' ^^''''''' Matthews, accompKshed 

In 1784, Hugh White and his family progressed beyond the set- 
lements on the Mohawk, and located at what is now Whitestown 
in the same year, James Dean located upon a tract given him by 
the Indians, in consequence of some services rendered them as an 
interpreter, near the present village of Rome. In 1787, Joseph 

tha?:o^;;ithsLn1^^^^^^^^ Stedln June 1791, he says 

to 18d per acre ; anithat a traSof ^n -i i f l,"*^ v^^ "^'^''^'y ^"""^^ ^^d risen 
York ik 1786, in Otsego coiSv wS h^I f'^ ^"^ ^°'P'^ °^" ^^'^ ^^^^e of New 
cost.™ but 6d per aSe, SS^t^r ^r Sfe^ --^^-s, 

^oZ'l^U:X'::El'^lSniZ:^£' ^^P™^^ -son^eiustancesasIowaseW 



124 PHELPS AOT) GOEHAm's PITRCnASE. 

Blactoev. who was afterwards a P>o"-"» ^•;-!'^;:f ' fCn 
county, advanced and settled a short distance west of •'"dge Uean^ 
In Ma' 1788, Asa Danfoith, with his famdy, accompan ed by 
Comfort Tyler pvogt-essed far on beyond the bounds of civ.Uza ton 
toeS at Onondaga Hollow. There being then no road, they 
iate by water, landing at the mouth of Onon aga Cree T e 
very earliest pioneers of all this region, speak of M»J«' "^ ™ 
Irth" and the comforts of his log tavern, as compared with t e 
camps in the wilderness. Another name has been - -d"- ;^^ 
should not be passed over by the mere mention of "; /;°"" °" 
TyTr was conspicuously identified in all early years «' h*^^-; 
•' *• ^f +ii;« Stitp He was teacniRg a 

tnrv nf the western portion oi this oiaie. jtac w = 

:Lu J: L MohLu at the close of the I^evolution an a^ 
enga J in the business of a surveyor. He was with Gen. Jaifles 
afnton in the establishment of the boundary Ime between th s 
unmon, m uic , . ,. , ,, , ... (;„, .^.e /„. th reference to 
State and Pennsylvania. He felled the hrst tree, ^w 

improvement,) assisted in the manufacture of the A'^^f ^ J°^^,^^ 
tha'n Indian manufacture,) and built the first '-"P^^^-.O;* 
county. Healsoconstructedthefirst "stump mortar, or hand 
m7of which the reader will be told more in the course of out nar^ 
a ive He filled many important ofiiees in Onon aga couiUy , and 
wis one of the original projectors of the Cayuga brigeH wa 
the friend of the early pioneers ; and many m all this region, w i 
remember bis good offices. The Indians, wl--e his firs ne.^t^ 
bors, respected him, and his memory is -°l^'^2Z7Z"- 
their descendents. His Indian name was To-whan-ta ua 
meatrin.. that he could do two things at once; or be, at the same 
"me a gentleman and a laboring man. While a member of tl« 
Legislature in 1799, he made the acquaintance of Aa^n Bui. A 
charter having been procured for building the bridge Col. Burr and 
CrSwartoul subscribed for the whole of the -ck ^ -^ aUha' 
time. Col. Burr had other business connections m this legion. 

■ • Tyler a«d Da„fo,ft, toll, engaged i.. n-nkins a litlte sa^ f" f- -!Si° 

' early/eaL A letter piAHshed in a l'l'>l»<Yl*",lX' «.to"' ^tts mentio.ed in 
bufi ot salt aremanufactured d..W .«M^ 

the history of Onondaga, that Col Danlcitli «»™'-»"° ' ,^ gj, Springs uponhu 
It caiTving afivepail ir«n kettle from Onondaga Holl™ '»"°,, 1,1,5 J read- 
Sad, iol this Luld be looked «p.na=;«'^'^^^^^^ 

^;^^^ sr^or 'rrfoT4.r--.^-g - * -y- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 125 

*' Thus commenced the intercourse of Aaron Burr with the people 
of Western New York, many of whom," with Col. Tyler, "were 
drawn into the great south-west expedition." Col. Tyler and Israel 
Smith were commissaries of the expedition ; went upon the Ohio 
river, purchased provisions," and shipped them to Natches. Col. 
Tyler was arrested and indicted, but never tried. With fortune 
impaired by all this, in a few years after. Col. .Tyler removed to 
Montezuma, and became identified in all early enterprises and im- 
provement at that point. In the war of 1812, he acted as Assistant 
Commissary General to the northern army. He was an early 
promoter of the canal policy, and his memory should be closely 
associated with all that relates to the early history of the Erie 
Canal. He died at Montezuma, in 1827. 

There followed Danforth and Tyler, in the progress of settle- 
ment westward, John L. Hardenburgh, whose location was called, 
in early years, " Hardenburgh's Corners," now the city of Auburn. 
In 1789, James Bennett and John Harris, settled on either side of 
Cayuga Lake, and established a ferry. This was about the extent 
of settlement west of the lower valley of the Mohawk, when set- 
tlements in the Genesee country began to be founded. * The ven- 
erable Joshua Fairbanks, of Lewiston, who with his then young 
wife, (who is also living,) came through from Albany to Geneva in 
the winter of 1789, '90; were sheltered the first night in the "un- 
finished log house" of Joseph Blackmer, who had become a 
neighbor of Judge Dean ; and the next night at Col. Danforth's ; 

Note. — For the principal facts in the above brief notice of one whose histoiy 
■would make an interesting volume, the author is indebted to the "History of Onon- 
daga." The connection, in all this region, of prominent individuals with Col. Bun", 
in his south-western scheme, was far more extensive than has genei-ally been supposed. 
It embraced names here, tlie mention of which would go far to favor the conclusion 
which time and its developements have been producing, that the scheme, as imparted 
by Col. BuiTtohis followers, had nothing in it of domestic treason. There were no 
better friends to their country, or more ardent devotees to its interests, than were many 
men of westeni N ew York, who wei-e enlisted in this scheme. In after years, when 
in famihar conversation with an informant of the author, (a resident of western 
Now York,) Col. BmT spoke even with enthusiasm of his associates here — naming 
them, and saying that among them, were men whom he would choose to lead armies, 
or engage in any higli acliievement that required talents and energy of character. At 
the risk of extending this note to an unreasonable length, the author will add the 
somewhat curious historical fact, that the maps and charts, by which the British fleet 
approached New Orleans in the war of 1812, were those prepared in western New 
York, by a tlien resident here, for the south-western expedition of Col. Buit. The 
ci.tcumstance was accidental ; the facts in no way implicating the author or maker of 
the maps. 

* Other than the settlement of Jerusalem. 



126 PHELPS AND GOKHAMS PUECHA5E. 

there being no intermediate settler. They camped out the third 
night ; and the fourth, staid with John Harris on the Cayuga Lake. 
The parents of Gen. Parkhurst Whitney, of Niagara Falls, came 
through to Seneca Lake, in February, 1790, "camping out" three 
nights west of Rome. It is mentioned, in connection with some 
account of the early advent of Major Danforth, in May, 1788, that 
his wife saw no white woman in the first eight months.' These in- 
:Cidents are cited, to remind the younger class of readers that the 
pioneers of this region not only came to a wilderness, but had a 
long and dreary one to pass through before arriving at their desti- 
nation. 

j The first name we find for all New York west of Albany, was 
that bestowed by the Dutch in 1638 : — " Terra Incognita," or " un- 
known land." It was next Albany county ; in 1772 Tryon county 
(named from the then English Governor,) was set off, embracing all 
of the territory in this state west of a line drawn north and south 
that would pass through the centre of Schoharie county. Imme- 
diately after the Revolution the name was changed to Montgomery. 
All this region was in Montgomery county when settlement com- 
menced. In 1788, all the region west of Utica was the town of 
Whitestown. The first town meeting was held at the " barn of 
Captain Daniel White, in said District, in April, 1789 ; Jedediah San- 
ger, was elected Supervisor. At the third town meeting, in 1791, 
Trueworthy Cook, of Pompey, and Jeremiah Gould of Salina, 
Onondaga county, and James Wadsworth of Geneseo, were chosen 
path masters. Accordingly, it may be noted that Mr. Wadsworth 
was the first path master west of Cayuga Lake. It could have been 
little more than the supervision of Indian trails ; but the " warning" 
must have been an onerous task. Mr. Wadsworth had the year 
previous, done something at road making, which probably suggested 
the idea that he would make a good path master.* At the first 
general election for Whitestown, the polls were opened at Cayuga 
Ferry, adjourned to Onondaga, and closed at Whitestown. Herki- 
mer county was taken from Montgomery in 1791, and included all 
west of the present county of Montgomery. 



* " The fii-st road attempted to be made in tliis country, was in 1790, under the di- 
rection of the Wads-worths, from the settlement at \\Tiitestown to Caiiandaigua 
thi-ough a country then very little explored, and then quite a -wilderness." — [History 
of Onondasra. 



PHELPS AND GOKHAm's PURCHASE. 12'? 



CHAPTER III 



THE GENESEE COUNTRY AT THE PERIOD WHEN SETTLEMENT COM- 
MENCED ITS POSITION IN REFERENCE TO CONTIGUOUS TE'RRITORY 

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY GENERALLY AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 



At Geneva, (then called Kanadesaga) there was a cluster of 
buildings, occupied b}^ Indian traders, and a few settlers who had 
come in under the auspices of the Lessee Company. Jemima 
Wilkinson, with her small colony, was upon her first location upon 
the west bank of Seneca Lake, upon the Indian Trail through the 
valley of the Susquehannah, and across Western New York to 
Upper Canada ; the primitive highway of all this region ; one or two 
white famihes had settled at Catherine's Town, at the head of Sen- 
eca Lake. A wdde region of wilderness, separated the most north- 
ern and western settlements of Pennsylvania from all this region. 
All that portion of Ohio bordering upon the Lake, had, of our race, 
but the small trading establishment at Sandusky, and the military 
and trading posts upon the Maumee. Michigan was a wilderness, 
save the French village and the British garrison at Detroit, and a 
few French settlers upon the Detroit River and the River Raisin. 
In fact, all that is now included in the geographical desigrxation — 
the Great West — was Indian territory, and had but Indian occu- 
pancy, with similar exceptions, to those made in reference to Mich- 
igan. In what is now known as Canada West, there had been the 
British occupancj^ of a post opposite Buffalo, early known as Fort 
Erie, and a trading station at Niagara, since the expulsion of the 
French, in 1759. Settlement, in its proper sense, had its commence- 
ment in Canada West during the Revolution ; w as the offspring of 
one of its emergencies. Those in the then colonies who adhered to 
the King, fled there for refuge : for the protection offered by British 
dominion and armed occupancy. The termination of the struggle* 



128 PHELPS a:nd goeham's purchase. 

in favor of the colonies, and the encouragement afforded by the 
colonial authorities, gave an impetus to this emigration ; yet a-t the 
period of the first commencement of settlement in Western New 
York, settlement in Canada West was confined to Kingston and its 
neighborhood, Niagara, Queenston, Chippewa, along the banks of the 
Niagara River, with a few small settlements in the immediate inte- 
rior. Upon Lakes Erie and Ontario, there were a few British 
armed vessels, and three or four schooners were employed in the 
commerce, which was confined wholly to the fur trade, and the 
supplying of British garrisons. 

Within the Genesee country, o*ft?er than the small settlement at 
Geneva, and the Friend's settlement, which has been before men- 
tioned, there w^ere two or three Indian traders upon the Genesee 
River, a few white families who were squatters, upon the flats ; one 
or two white families at Lewiston ; one at Schlosser ; a negro, with 
a squaw W' ife, at Tonawanda ; an Indian interpreter, and two or 
three traders at the mouth of Buffalo creek, and a negro Indian 
trader at the mouth of Cattaragus creek. Fort Niagara was a 
British garrison. All else was Seneca Indian occupancy. 

In all that relates to other than the natural productions of the 
soil, there was but the cultivation, in a rude way, of a few acres of 
flats, and intervals, on the river and creeks, wherever the Indians 
were located ; the productions principally confined to corn, beans 
and squashes. In the way of cultivated fruit, there was in several 
localities, a few apple trees, the seeds of which had been planted 
by the Jesuit Missionaries ; and they were almost the only relic 
left of their early, and long continued occupancy. At Fort Niag- 
ara and Schlosser, there were ordinary English gardens. 

The streams upon an average, were twice as large as now ; the 
clearing of the land, and consequent absorption of the water, having 
diminished one half, and perhaps more, the quantity of water then 
carried off through their channels. The primitive- forests — other 
than those that were deemed of second growth — that are standing 
now, have undergone but little change, that of ordinary decay, 
growth, and re-production, but there are large groves of second 
growth, now consisting of good sized forest trees, that were sixty 
years ago but small saplings. The aged Senecas point out in many 
instances, swamps that are now thickly wooded, that they have 
known as open marshes, with but here and there a copse of under- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAJl's PURCHASE. 129 

wood. The origin of many marshes, especially upon the small 
streams, may be distinctly traced to the beave*r ; the erection of 
their damS, and the consequent flooding of the lands, having des- 
troyed the timber. As the beaver gradually disappeared, the dams 
wore away, the water flowed ofi^, and forest trees began to grow. 

And here it may not be out of place to remark, that a very com- 
mon error exists in reference to the adaptedness of certain kinds 
of forest trees to a wet soil. We find the soft maple, black ash, a 
species of elm, the fir, the spruce, the tamarack, the alder, and 
several other varieties of trees and shrubs growing in wet soils, 
and then draw the infej-ence that wet soils are their natural local- 
ities. Should we not rather infer, that all this is accidental, or 
rather, to be traced to other causes, than that of peculiar adaptation ? 
Take the case of land that has been flooded by the beaver: — the 
water has receded, and the open ground is prepared for the recep- 
tion of such seeds as the winds, the floods, the birds and fowls, 
bring to it. It will be found that the seeds of those trees which 
predominate in the swamps, are those best adapted to the modes of 
transmission. The practical bearing of these remarks, has refer- 
ence to the transplanting of trees from wet grounds. Wherever 
the ash, the fir, spruce, tamarack, high bush cranberry, soft maple, 
&c. have been transplanted upon up lands, and properly cared for, 
they furnish evidence that it was a casualty, not a peculiar adapta- 
tion, that placed them where found, generally stinted and unhealthy. 
But little was known in the colonies of New York, and New 
England of Western New York, previous to the Revolution. During 
the twenty-four years it had been in the possession of the English, 
there had been a communication kept up by water, via Oswego 
and Niagara, to the western posts ; and a few traders from the east 
visited the Senecas. The expeditions of Prideux and Bradstreet 
were composed partly of citizens of New England and New York, 
but they saw nothing of the interior of all this region. A few 
years previous to the Revolution, in 1765, the Rev. Samuel Kirk- 
land, whose name will appear in connexion with Indian treaties, in 
subsequent pages, extended his missionary labors to the Indian 
village of Kanadesaga, where he sojourned for several months, 
making excursions to tlie Genesee River, Tonawanda and Buffalo 
Creeks. He was the first protestant missionary among the Senecas, 
and with the exception of Indian traders, probably gave the people 



130 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

of New England, the first account of the Genesee country.* But 
the campaign of Gen. Sullivan, in 1779, more than all else perhaps, 
served to create an interest in this region. The route of the army, 
after entering the Genesee country, was one to give them a favora- 
ble impression of it. They saw the fine region along the west shore 
of the Seneca Lake ; and passing through what are now the towns 
of Seneca, Phelps, Gorham, Canandaigua, Bristol, Bloomfield, Rich- 
mond, Livonia, Conesus, they passed up and down the flats of the 
Genesee and the Canasoraga. To eyes that had rested only upon 
the rugged scenery of New England, its mountains and rocky hill 
sides, its sterile soil and stinted herbage, the march must have af- 
forded a constant succession of beautiful landscapes ; and what was 
of greater interest to them, practical working men as they were, 
was the rich easily cultivated soil, that at every step caused them 
to look forward to the period when they could make to it a second 
advent — a peaceful one — with the implements of agriculture, 
rather than the weapons of war. Returning to the firesides of 
Eastern New York, and New England, they relieved the dark pic- 
ture of retaliatory warfare — the route, the flight, smouldering 
cabins, pillage and spoliations — with the lighter shades — descrip- 
tions of the Lakes and Rivers, the rolling up-lands and rich valleys 
— the Canaan of the wilderness, they had seen. But it was a far 
off land, farther off than would seem to us now, our remote posses- 
sions upon the Pacific ; associated in the minds of the people of 
New England, with all the horrors of a warfare they had known 
upon their own extreme borders ; the Revolution was not consum- 



* The young missionary bad first seen some of the young men of the Six Nations, 
at the mission school of the Rev. Mr. Wheelock in Lebanon, Connecticut, where they 
were his fellow students, among whom was Joseph Brant. Taking a deep interest 
in the spiritual welfare of their people, he got introduced to them as a missionary of 
Sir Wilbam Johnson. With Indian guides, carrying a pack containing his provisions, 
travelling upon snow shoes, and camping at night upon and under hemlock boughs, 
he reached the Indian settlement at the foot of Seneca Lake, or rather at the Seneca 
Castle. He was well received by the chief sachem of the village, and invited to re- 
main ; but another chief of the Pagan party of the village, soon made him much 
trouble, and in fact endangered liis life, by accusing him of witchcraft — of being the 
cause of the sudden death of one of their people. He was tried and acquitted through 
the influence of Ms friend the chief sacliem, and a trader from the Mohawk, by the 
name of Wcinple, the father of Mrs. Gilbert Eeny, and grandfather of Mrs. George 
Hosmer.* After this he w:is uninterrupted in his missionary labors. Mr. Kiikland's 
influence with tlie Indians enabled him to do essential service during the Revolution, 
in diverting them from Eutler and Braut. 

* See Appendix, No. 5. 



PHELPS AND GOEIIAm's PURCHASE. 131 

mated ; long years it must be, as they thought, if ever, before the 
goodly land, of which they had thus had glimpses, could become 
the abode of civilization. The consummation was not speedy, but it 
come far sooner than in that dark hour, they allowed themselves to 
anticipate. In less than four years after Sullivan's expedition, the 
war of the Revolution was ended by a treaty of peace ; but almost 
ten years elapsed before the conflicting claims of Massachusetts 
and New York were settled, and Indian titles had been extinguish- 
ed, so as to admit of the commencement of settlement. 

The tide of emigation to the Genesee county, was destined to 
come principally from New England. A brief space, therefore^ 
may be appropriately occupied in a sketch of the condition of the 
citizens of that region, after the Revolution, in the vortex of which 
thej^ had been placed ; and in this, the author has been assisted by 
the • venerable Gen. Micah Brooks, whose retentive memory goes 
back to the period, and well informs us in reference to the men 
who were the foremost Pioneers of the Genesee country. The 
sketch is given as it came from his hands : — 

" It was my lot to have my birth under the Colonial Government. 
In childhood, I saw our fathers go to the field of battle, and our 
mothers to the harvest field to gather the scanty crops. Food and 
clothing for the army was but in part provided ; and at the end of 
the war, the soldiers, who had suffered almost beyond endurance, 
were discharged without pay ; the patriots, who had supplied food 
and clothing for the • army, had been paid in Government paperj^ 
which had become worthless ; the great portion of laborers drawn 
from the farms and the workshops, had reduced the country to 
poverty ; and commerce was nearly annihilated. The fisheries 
abandoned, the labor and capital of the people diverted into other 
channels, and the acts of peace had not returned to give any sur- 
plus for exportation. A national debt justly due, of $100,000,000, 
and the Continental Congress no power to collect duties on imports, 
or to compel the States to raise their quotas. The end of the war 
brought no internal peace. In 1785, Congress attempted to make 
commercial treaties with England, France, Spain and Portugal; 
each refused ; assigning as a reason, that under the Confederacy, 
Congress had no power to bind the States. Spain closed the Mis- 
sissippi against our trade, and we were expelled from the Mediter- 
ranean by Barbary pirates ; and we were without the means to 



132 PHELPS AND GOEHAlVl's PFECIIASE. 

fight them, or money to buy their peace. The attempt of the 
States to extend their commerce was abortive ; salt rose to 85 and 
$8 per bushel ; and packing meat for exportation ceased. Massa- 
chusetts prohibited the exportation of American products in British 
bottoms ; and some of the States imposed a countervailing duty 
on foreign tonnage. Pennsylvania imposed a duty on foreign goods, 
while New Jersey admitted them free of duty. 

" During the war, various causes had operated to make a new dis- 
tribution of property : — those equally friendly to the British had 
secretly traded with the enemy, and supplied them with fresh provi- 
sions, while their troops were quartered in various parts of the 
country; thus filling their pockets with British gold. At the close 
of the war, a large amount of British goods were sent into the 
country, absorbing much of its precious metals ; tending to render 
us still dependent on British favor. While all those whose time 'and 
property had been devoted to the cause of liberty and independ- 
ence, were scarcely able to hold their lands, taxation brought dis- 
tress and ruin on a great portion of our most worthy citizens. 
Time was required by those who had lost their time and property, 
to re-establish themselves in their former occupations ; yet, some 
of the States resorted to vigorous taxation, which created discon- 
tent and open resistance. The great and general pressure, at this 
time, seemed to create a universal attempt of all creditors to en- 
force in the courts of law all their demands before they should 
be put at hazard by the sweeping taxation, which was evidently 
coming. 

" It may be well to call to mind the condition of the country, as to 
law and government. At the period of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, we had neither constitutions nor government, and the 
people took the power into their hands to conduct the affairs of the 
nation. The people, in their primary assemblies, attempted to car- 
ry out the recommendations of the American Congress ; and that 
in many instances, by town committees ; and to furnish recruits for 
the army. The citizens of a town would form themselves into 
classes ; each class to furnish a man, equipped for service. The towns 
punished treason, arrested and expelled lories, levied taxes, and 
cordially co-operated in all the leading measures of that day, so far 
as related to our National Independence. 

"In 1786, '7, a boy, I saw the Revolutionary fathers in their 



PIIELP3 AKD GOEILyil's PUECHASE. 133 

primary assemblies. The scene was solenm and portentous ! They 
found their common country without a constitution and govern- 
ment, and without a union. The supposed oppressive measures of 
an adjoining State had so alarmed the people of a portion of it, 
that open resistance was made for self-protection, and the protec- 
tion of property. An army, in resistance to a 'proceeding of the 
courts of law in Massachusetts, had been raised, and had taken the 
field. Col. P., a man of gigantic stature, and a soldier of the Rev- 
olution, with his associates in arms, entered the court-house at 
Northampton, silenced the court ; and in a voice of thunder, order- 
ed it out, closing the doors, and using the court-house as his castle. 
In the county of Berkshire, a General, with three hundred volun- 
teers, had taken the field, in open resistance to State authority ; and 
the blood of the citizens had been shed, and the execution of 
State laws had been suspended. Other sections of our country 
were in a state of insurrection, and no prospect of relief from any 
source of mediatorial power then existing. The appalling scenes 
that followed, filled the American people with fear and dread. The 
distress that existed, might be an apology for the resistance of the 
laws, which was afterwards regretted by those who partook in it, a 
number of whom I saw who had left their homes and wandered as 
fugitives to evade the punishment that the law would inflict on 
them. 

" A new field was now opened to exhibit the powers, genius and 
energies of the American people. They soon discovered what was 
essential to their security and prosperity ; and in their deliberations, 
moved and adopted an ordinance, or constitution, which they de- 
clared to be ' in order to form a more perfect union, establish jus- 
tice, ensure domestic tranquility, and provide for the general de- 
fence ; promote the gentral welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity ;' and, although defects and 
doubts of its renovating power existed, yet, in a spirit of concilia- 
tion, they adopted it. 

At the time the new constitution went into efiect, a new class 
of laborers appeared. These sturdy boys, who were taught in 
business habits durino; the war, had otowu to manhood, and wnth 
redoubled energy, repaired the depredations which contending 
armies had spread. And many of those soldiers who composed 
Sullivan's army, and who had penetrated the western wilds of this 



134 PHELPS AND GORHAM-S PURCHASE. 

State, to chastise the savages for crueUies inflicted on their friends 
and relations; those who had viewed the beauties of the Genesee, 
and the rich table lands of Western New York, resolved to leave 
the sterile soil, the worn and exhausted lands of New England, and 
with their families, under the guidance and protection of a kind 
Providence, gathered their small substance, pioneered the way 
through a long wilderness, to the land of promise — the Genesee 
country. 

In 179G, in common with the sons of New England, I had a 
strong disposition to explore the regions of the west, and avail my- 
self if possible, of a more productive soil, where a more bountiiul 
reward would relieve the toil of labor. I traversed the Mohawk, 
the Susquehannah, the Seneca and the Genesee. I saw the scatter- 
ed Pioneers of the wilderness in their lonely cabins, cheered by 
the hope and promise of a generous reward, for all the temporary 
privations they then suffered. Their hearts were cheered with the 
sight of a stranger, and they greeted him with a welcome. I found 
in most of the pioneer localities, that three-fourths of the heads of 
families had been soldiers of the Revolution. Schooled in the prin- 
ciples that had achieved that glorious work, they only appreciated 
the responsibilities they had assumed, in becoming founders of new 
settlements, and the proprietors of local,- religious, educational and 
moral institutions. These Pioneers inherited the principles and 
firmness of their forefathers ; and whatever in reason and pro- 
priety they desired to accomplish, their energy and perseverance 
carried into effect. They subdued the forest, opened avenues of 
intercourse, built houses and temples for worship, with a rapidity 
unknown in former ages. For intelligence and useful acquirements 
they were not out done in any age ; and were v/ell skilled in all the 
practical duties of life. In seven or eight years from the fii'st en- 
trance of a settler, a number of towns in Ontario county, were fur- 
nished with well chosen public libraries." 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PUECHASE. 135 



CHAPTER IV. 



PHELPS AND GORHAM S PURCHASE OF MASSACHUSETTS —OLIVER PHELPS, 

HIS ADVENT TO THE GENESEE COUNTRY, AND HIS TREATY 

WITH THE SENEGAS : NATHANIEL GORHAM. 



Oliver Phelps was a native of Windsor, Connecticut. Soon 
after he became of age, the resistance to British oppression com- 
menced in the colony of Massachusetts, and he became an active 
partizan, participating in the revolutionary spirit, with all the zeal 
of youth and ardent patriotism. He was among the men of New 
England, who gathered at Lexington, and helped to make that early 
demonstration of intended separation and independence. Soon 
after, without the influence of wealth or familv distinction — with 
nothing to recommend him but uncommon energy of character, and a 
reputation he had won for himself — though but a youth, he was 
enrolled as a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. 
When the troops of Connecticut were first organized, and had 
taken the field, he entered the service of a contractor ot the army, 
and soon after had an appointment in the commissary department, 
the duties of which he continued to discharge until the close of the 
Revolution. 

On the return of peace, he settled in Suffield, Massachusetts. 
He held in succession, the offices of member of Assembly, Sena- 
tor, and a member of the Governor's council. Robert Morris 
having been at the head of financial affairs during the Revolution, 
Mr. Phelps had made his acquaintance, and for a few years after 
its close, business relations brought them frequently together. Maj, 
Adam Hoops, who had been the aid of Gen. Sullivan, in his expe- 
dition to the Genesee country, was a resident of Philadelphia, and 
an intimate acquaintance of Mr. Morris. It was during interviews 
with them, that Mr. Phelps was confirmed in a favorable opinion of 



136 PHELPS AND GOEIIAm's PURCHASE. 

this region, and the inducements it held out to enterprise, which had 
been acquired by the representations of his New England neigh- 
bors, who had been in Sullivan's expedition. 

Soon after Massachusetts became possessed of the pre-emption 
right by deed of cession from New York, he resolved upon being 
interested in the purchase of one million of acres ; and for this 
purpose associated himself with Judge Sullivan, Messrs. Skinner 
and Chapin, William Walker, and several of his friends in Berk- 
shire. Before they liad matured their plans however, Nathaniel 
Gorham had made proposals to the Legislature for the purchase of 
a portion of the Genesee lands. Mr. Phelps had a conference with 
Mr. Gorham, and to prevent coming in collision, they mutually 
agreed, that Mr. Gorham should merge himself with the association, 
and consider his proposition as made for their common benefit. He 
had proposed the purchase of one million of acres, at one and six- 
pence currency per acre, payable in the "public paper of the com- 
monwealth." The House of Representatives acceded to the propo- 
sition, but the Senate non-concurred. In a letter to one of the 
associates, announcing the result, Mr. Phelps observes: — "We 
found such opposition in the Senate, and so many person's ears and 
eyes wide open, propagating great stories about the value of those 
lands, that we thought best to postpone the affair until the next 
session." This was at the session of 1787. 

The effect of Mr. Gorham's olTer was to bring competitors into 
the field, and others had resolved upon making proposals before the 
legislature again convened in April, 1788. Another compromise 
was made which admitted new partners, and embraced all who 
had any intention of purchase, in one association, of w'hich Messrs. 
Phelps and Gorham were constituted the representatives. They 
made proposals for all the lands embraced in the cession of Massa- 
chusetts, which were acceded to ; the stipulated consideration being 
8100,000, payable in the public paper of Massachusetts; the price 



Note. — In addition to the knowledn^e Mr. Phelps liad acquired of the conntiy as 
ahovc indicated, some early explorer had given him a written account of it from which 
the following is an exti-act : — " The country is so favorable to fruit, that the apple trees 
destroyed in tlio late war, have spnmg up and already bear fruit. The flats and in- 
tervals of which there are a gi-eat quantity, are stiperior to any on Connecticut River. 
There are many salt springs ; an Indian was working at one of them last summer, 
when I was in the countiy, with an old broken pot-ash kettle, and he never made less 
than a bushel a day.' 



PHELPS AOT) G0EHA3l's PUECHASE. 137 

of which being much depressed, it was selUng at a high rate of 
discount. 

So much accomplished, the share holders held a meeting, appoint- 
ed Gen. Israel Chapin to go out and explore the country; Mr. 
Phelps the general agent, whose first duty was to hold a treaty with 
the Indians, and purchase the fee or right of soil ; Mr. Gorham as an 
agent to confer with the authorities of New Yor.k, in reference to 
running the boundary or pre-emption line ; and Mr. William Walk- 
er, as the local agent of surveys and sales. 

The Lessees and their " long lease," was an obstacle duly con- 
sidered by the purchasers, for they were aware of the exertions 
they were making to thwart the commissioners of New York, and 
had no reason to anticipate any thing less from them, in their own 
case. Massachusetts had joined New York, in declaring the leases 
illegal and void, but the association were well advised that they 
could not succeed in a treaty with the Senecas, against the powerful 
influences the Lessees could command, through their connection 
with Butler, Brant, Street, and their associates in Canada, and the 
Indian traders and interpreters in their interest. A compromise 
was resolved upon as the cheapest and surest means of success. 
Proceeding to Hudson, Mr. Phelps met some of the principal Les- 
sees, and compromised with them upon terms of which there are 
no records, but there is evidence which leads to the conclusion, that 
they were to become shareholders with him and his associates. 
The Lessees on their part, contracted to hold another treaty with 
the Indians at Kanadesaga, surrender their lease of all the lands 
west of the Massachusetts pre-emption line, and procure for the 
same, a deed of cession, Phelps &. Gorham, for themselves and 
associates, to be the grantees. 

Mr. Phelps returned to New England and made preparations for 
attending the treaty at Kanadesaga, which was to be convened and 
carried on under the general supervision of John Livingston, the 
principal agent of the Lessees. In all confidence that the arrange- 
ment would be consummated, Mr. Phelps started upon his advent to 
the Genesee country with a retinue of agents, surveyors, and assis- 
tants, prepared to take possession of the country and commence 
operations. Arriving at Schenectady on the 8th of May, the party 
put their baggage on board of batteaux and arranged to go on horse- 
back to Fort Stanwix, as far as there was any road, and from there 
9 



138 PHELPS AOT) GOPiHAJWS PUKCHASE. 

embark in their batteaux. Mr. Phelps wrote from Schenectady 
that they were hkely to be delayed there by the non-arrival of Mr. 
Livingston ; that he had met many unfavorable rumors, the purport 
of one of which was. that the Indians had refused to treat with 
Livingston, and that they had " taken up and whipped several 
persons" in his interests who had preceded him at Kanadesaga. 
On the 13th he wrote to Col. Wads worth, of Hartford, that Livings- 
ton had arrived, with his provisions and goods for the treaty, that 
all was on board of batteaux, and the expedition was about to move 
on ; but he adds, that an Oneida Indian had just arrived from the 
west with the information that Brant has " got the Indians collected 
at Buffalo creek, and is persuading them to take up the hatchet, and if 
possible not to treat with us." He expresses his fears that the treaty 
will fail ; and adds his regrets, as he thinks it will " keep back settle- 
ment a whole year." 

Mr. Phelps did not arrive at Kanadesaga, (Geneva,) until the 
first of June. On the 4th he wrote to one of his associates, Samuel 
Fowler, informing him that the Indians had not collected, that But- 
ler and Brant had collected them at Buffalo creek and persuaded 
them not to treat with Livingston. But inasmuch as Livingston 
had sent out runners and interpreters, he is in hopes they will yet 
be collected. " I am well pleased," he says, " with what I have seen 
of the country. This place is situated at the foot of Seneca Lake, 
on a beautiful hill which over looks the country around it, and gives 
a fine prospect of the whole lake, which is about forty miles in 
length. Here we propose building the city, as there is a water 
carriage from this to Schenectady ; with only two carrying places 
of one mile each. I design to set out to-morrow to viev/ the Genesee 
Flats." 

After waiting at Kanadesaga until the 17th of June, Mr. Phelps 
made up his mind that the Lessees would be unable to fulfil their 
contract, and informed their agent, Mr. Livingston, that he should 
proceed independent of them or their lease, to treat with the Indians. 

Note. — In addition to otlier letters of introduction lie had ]-)rovided himself with 
in iase of necessity, he procured one at Kanadesaga from Dominique Debartzch, the 
French Indian trader at Cashong, who wielded more influence then among the Sunecas 
than any one man had, since the days of tlie Jesuit Fathers, and .Joncaii'e. He had 
essentially aided the Lessees as the reader has observed, and now as zealously es- 
poused the interests of Mr. Phelps. Among Indian traders, interpreters, and it may 
almost be said, missionaries, at that period, " every man had his price," and it was 
generally payable in land, in case it should be obtained. 



PHELP3 AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 139 

He had by this time discovered that there was a " screw loose" 
between the " New York Genesee Company" and the " Niagara 
Genesee Company" and that they were pulling in different directions. 
Inferring that the balance of power was in the hands of the Niag- 
ara Company, Mr. Phelps taking the Indian trail, proceeded to Niag- 
ara, where he met Butler, Brant and Street. He secured their 
co-operation, and they agreed to procure a gathering of the Indians 
at Buffalo creek for the purpose of holding a treaty with him. Mr. 
Phelps, rejoined his friends at Kanadesaga where he remained until 
a deputation of chiefs waited upon him to conduct him to the coun- 
cil fire they had lighted at Buffalo creek,* where he and his party 
arrived on the 4th of July. 

Negotiations were commenced. The Rev. Mr. Kirkland was 
present, appointed by a law of Massachusetts to superintend the 
treaty and see that no injustice was done to the Indians, and his 
assistant, superintendent, Elisha Lee, Esq. of Boston. The inter- 
preters were James Deane and Joseph Smith, William Johnstone, 
Mr. Kirkland and several others. Besides these, there were also 
present, John Butler, Joseph Brant, Samuel Street, the officers of 
Fort Niagara. The Lessees, following up Mr. Phelps, were repre- 
sented by John Livingston, Caleb Benton and Ezekiel Gilbert. 
Chiefs of the Onondagas, Cayugas, and the Mohawks were also 
present. 

On the opening of the council, Mr. Phelps produced the commis- 
sion given him by the Governor of Massachusetts : f had it inter- 
preted ; and made a speech, explaining the object of the treaty ; 
the right he had purchased of Massachusetts, &c. Most of the 
Seneca chiefs, of which there was a pretty full delegation present, 
were for selling a portion of their lands. They, however, stood 
out as to the quantity. They had come to the treaty, determined 
upon making the Genesee river the eastern boundary of their ces- 
sion, and they stoutly resisted innovation west of it for several 
days : but finally yielded, and fixed the western boundary as it was 

* Red Jacket was at the head of tliis deputation. Afterwards, in 1790, at a council 
at Tioga, when complaining to Mr. Pickering of some wrong in reference to Mr. Phelp's 
treaty, he said : — "Then I, Billy, and The Heap of Dogs, went to Kanadesaga and 
took Mr. Phelps by the hand, and led him to om- council lire at Buffalo creek." 

tSays Red Jacket, in his complaints to Mr. Pickering, at Tioga :— "Then all know, 
and Mr. Street knows, that Mr. Phelps held up a jpaper, with a seal to it> as bi"- as my 
hand. When he opened his mind to us, we took it hard." ° 



140 PHELPS A.-KD GOEHAM's PmiCIIASE. 

afterwards established. Mr. Phelps, in a statement he made of tlie 
transactions, says, " the council was conducted in a friendly and 
amicable manner." The negotiation then turned upon the price to 
be paid ; and Mr. Phelps and the Indians failing to agree, they mu- 
tually appointed John Butler, Joseph Brant, Elisha Lee, as referees, 
who agreed that Mr. Phelps should pay for the tract purchased, five 
thousand dollars, and an annuity of five hundred dollars for ever. 
The Indians had consented to take for the quantity of land they 
were conveying, a sum which would amount to a fair proportion 
of what the Lessees had agreed to pay for their whole country, and 
this was the basis upon which the price was fixed. 

The lands thus ceded, constituted what is now known as Phelp's 
and Gorham's Purchase ; its eastern boundary, the Massachusetts' 
pre-emption line ; and its western boundary, a line " beginning in 
the northern line of Pennsylvania, due south of tlie corner or point 
of land made by the confluence of the Genesee river and the Can- 
ascraga Creek ; thence north on said meridian line to the corner, 
or point, at the confluence aforesaid ; thence northwardly along the 
waters of the Genesee river, to a point two miles north of Cana- 
wagus village ; thence running due west twelve miles ; thence run- 
ning northwardly, so as to be twelve miles distant from the western 
bounds of said river to the shores of Lake Ontario." Within 
these boundaries, were contained, by estimation, 2,600,000 acres. 

Soon after arriving at Bufialo Creek, ]Mr. Phelps saw that the 
Lessee agents would embarrass his negotiations — at least, cause 
delay — and he, therefore, made a compromise, stipulating the con- 
veyance to them of the four townships named in another connec- 
tion; besides, as may well be inferred, paying their immediate 
agents well for a forbearance in the work of mischief, in which 
they were so persevering. Their release of so much as was in- 
cluded in his purchase, was interpreted to the Indians. 

The Niagara Genesee Company, Butler and his associates, in ad- 
dition to their interests in common with all the Lessees, had an in- 
dependent claim for convening the Indians ; and by their influence, 

Note. — With the story of the "Mill Site," the reader will be familiar. The au- 
thor finds uo record of it ; but it may well be presumed, that Mr. Phelps, in urging 
the extension of his purchase beyond the Genesee river, spoke of building a mill at 
the Falls ; and in all probability, promised to do so for the mutual benefit of the In- 
dians and the white settlers ; for immediately after the treaty, he gave the 100 acres to 
Ebenezer AUan, upon condition that he would erect a saw-mill and grist-mill. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 141 

in fact, enabling Mr. Phelps to accomplish his purpose. This was, 
probably, arranged by a promise on the part of Mr. Phelps, to give 
them an interest in common with himself and associates. * 

Mr. Phelps, before leaving the country, set surveyors to work, 
uniler the direction of Col. Hugh Maxwell, to divide the newly ac- 
quired country into townships ; and, having fixed upon Canandai- 
gua as the primitive locality, the focus of intended enterprise, re- 
turned to Suffield. All retired as winter approached, and left the 
whole region in possession of its ancient owners. f Arrived at home, 
Mr. Phelps reported, by letter to his principal associates, the result 
of his embassy. " You may rely upon it," says he " that it is a good 
country ; I have purchased all that the Indians will sell at pre- 
sent ; and, perhaps, as much as it would be profitable for us to buy 
at this time." Mr. Walker, after having remained in the country 
until nearly the setting in of winter, returned and was present at a 
meeting of the associates in January. He reported that he had 
sold and contracted about thirty townships. At this meeting, a 
division of the land took place ; a large proportion of the shares 
were but small ones, the largest portion of the lands falling into the 

* Sucla would seem to have been the an-angemeiit, though a misunderstanding and 
litigation ensued. Soon after Mr. Phelps' large sale to Robert Morris, " Samuel Street 
and others," (the Niagara Lessee Company,) filed a bill in chancery, setting forth 
that they were entitled to the proceeds of sales of " fifteen one hundi-ed and twentieth 
parts " of all of Phelps' and Gorham's Purchase, by virtue of an agreement made by 
Mr. Phelps at the treaty of Buffalo Creek. Upon the bill of complaint, an injunction 
was issued against Phelps and Gorham, their associates in interest, and their grantees ; 
but how the matter was an-anged, the author is unable to state. An interminable 
quan-el arose between the two lessee companies ; and the Canada company had but 
little, if any, of the avails of the four townsliips. Some of their correspondence re- 
minds one of the anecdote of the gambler, who, after pocketing cards, and practicing 
the arts of his profession for a whole evening, very gravely complained that there 
"was cheating about the board." 

t Kanadesaga (Geneva) excepted. Mr. Phelps' intentions of founding a settlement 
at Geneva, which the reader will have noticed, was of course changed, when he found 
that according to the original survey of tlae pre-emption line, the locality was off from 
his purchase. Canandaigua was his next choice. 

Note. — There has been a very common mistake as to where Mr. Phelps held his 
Indian treaty ; and this work will, probably, fall into the liands of those who will in- 
sist that it was at Canandaigua, pointing out the very sjjot upon which it was held. 
The eiTor has been perpetutated by historians and essayists, who have added a fancy 
sketch of a scene at the treaty ground: — Red Jacket eloquently invoking the war 
cry, the tomahawk and scalping knife, and Farmer's Brother opposing him. The 
whole stoiy is spoiled by Red Jacket's own assertion, that he and "Billy, and the 
Heap of Dogs," led Mr. "Phelps from Kanadesaga to the ti'eaty at Buffalo Creek. There 
was no opposition to the Phelps' treaty at the time ; but one afterwards appeared. 
The idea of a land treaty of Mr. Phelps with the Indians, at Canandaigua, must have 
come from a gathering which was had there in 1789, when Mr. Phelps' payments be- 
came due. 



142 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PTIECnASE. 

hands of Phelps and Gorham and a few associates. The most of 
the early sales of townships, was to those who held shares. * 

Early in the spring of 1789, under the general auspicies of Mr. 
Phelps, arrangements were made, and a pretty formidable expedition 
started out to the new Genesee country to commence a settlement, 
the general details of which will be found in another connection. 
Mr. Phelps was during that and succeeding years, alternating be- 
tween Canandaigua and his home in New England. Before the 
close of 1789, he had jointly, with John Taylor, an agent of the 
State, contracted wnth Ephraim Blackmer, who has before been 
named, for the cutting out of a road, two rods wide from Fort Stan- 
wix to Seneca Lake. While in the Genesee country this year, in 
the absence of any local laws, he entered into a written compact with 
some Seneca chiefs, of a reciprocal character, each party promising 
to punish oifences committed by their own people. 

After all this had transpired, at the session of the Massachusetts 
legislature in 1789, Messrs. Phelps and Gorham, and their associates, 
found themselves unable to fulfil the engagements they had made 
for the payment of the purchase money. They had predicated 
payment upon the supposition, that they could purchase the public 
paper of Massachusetts, at its then market value, which was but 
about fifty cents on the dollar. In the interval, before pay day ar- 
rived, the prospect of success in the formation of a Federal govern- 
ment, and a consequent funding of the debts of the States, the 
paper they had stipulated to make payment in, had nearly a par value 
in market. Thus situated, and having failed to extinguish the 
native right to the whole, they memorialized the legislature and 
got released from their obligations in reference to what remained, 
paying only for what was included in their Indian treaty. The 
legislature, the more readily perhaps, acceded to their request, inas- 
much as they were pretty sure of finding a purchaser for what re- 
mained, in the person of Robert Morris. 

New difficulties however, soon presented themselves. The Indi- 
ans who had seemed almost universally satisfied with the sale to 
Mr. Phelps, became divided upon the subject; the mischievous 

* The low prices named in connection with some of the early sales, is explained by 
this. The purchasers were shareholders ; the price paid, about what it had cost the 
association. For instance, Robinson and Hathaway were original shareholders ; and 
the price they paid for Jerasalem, was fixed upon the basis named. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM'S PURCHASE. 143 

traders and some interpreters among them, promoted the trouble, 
and in that then retreat of disturbed spirits, and haters of every 
thing that was American — the refugees of the Revolution, and 
British officers and agents — Fort Niagara and its precincts — there 
vvere disturbers other than those that had been compromised with. 
The Indian chief Cornplanter, was the principal representative of 
the malcontents. 

In August, 1790, Mr. Phelps being in the Genesee country, wrote 
to the elder Mr. Gorham in Boston, and after giving a somewhat dis- 
couraging account of the almost universal prevalence of disease 
among the new settlers,* informs him that the Indians had been at 
Canandaigua, and refused to receive any farther payments, alledg- 
ing that the amount of purchase money, aside from the annuity, 
was to have been ten, instead of five thousand dollars. He adds, 
that some recent murders of Indians committed at Tioga, by whites, 
had helped to exasperate them ; that he was about to set out to visit 
their principal villages to appease them ; and that if he did not suc- 
ceed, he feared they would retaliate by a general attack upon the 
whites. 

At an Indian council by Mr. Pickering at Tioga, in November, 
Red Jacket and Farmer's Brother made speeches, in which they 
both claimed that the sum to be paid by Mr. Phelps, was ten instead 
of five thousand dollars ; alledged that they had been cheated ; 
that their " heads had been confused " by treaties with the ''thirteen 
Fires," with " Fires kindled by the Governor of New York," and 
by " Livingston." Speaking of the payment from Mr. Phelps, Red 
Jacket said : — " When we went to Canandaigua to meet Mr. Phelps, 
expecting to receive ten thousand dollars, we were to have but five 
thousand. When we discovered the fraud, we had a mind to apply 
to Congress, to see if the matter could not be rectified. For when 
we took the money and shared it, every one here knows, that we 
had but about one dollar a piece. All our lands came to, was but 
the worth of a few hogsheads of tobacco. Gentlemen who stand 
by, do not think hard of us for what has been said. At the time 
of the treaty, twenty broaches would not buy half a loaf of bread ; 

*He says: — "We have suffered much for the want of a physician ; Atwater has 
not yet aiTived ; we have now a gentleman from Pennsylvania attending on .the sick, 
who seems to understand his business. The two Wadsworths, who came from Dur- 
ham, have been very sick, are now recovering, but are low spiiited ; they like the 
country but their sickness has discouraged them." 



144 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

SO that when we returned home, there was not a bright spot of 
silver about us." 

In December, Cornplanter, attended by other Seneca chiefs, met 
President Washington at Philadelphia, and delivered to him a speech, 
in which he represented that the treaty at Buffalo creek, had been 
fraudulently conducted ; that Mr. Phelps represented himself as 
the agent of the " thirteen Fires," that he told them that the coun- 
try had been ceded to the thirteen Fires by the British King ; that 
if he could not make a bargain with the Indians, he could take 
their lands by force ; and that generally, it was by threats and de- 
ceptions he had obtained the Indian lands. He added that Mr. 
Street, whom they supposed their friend, "until they saw him 
whispering with Phelps," had been bribed by the promise of a 
large tract of land. The President heard the complaints, promised 
an investigation of the matter, and to see the Indians redressed if 
they had suffered wrong. 

Soon after all this, Mr. Phelps addressed the President, giving a 
detailed history of the treaty, denying the allegations of Cornplan- 
ter, and asserting that he caused the Indians at the treaty, to be 
well informed of his errand, their rights to their lands ; that he used 
no threats, or coercion to accomplish his object, and that the sum 
he was to advance to the Indians, was but five thousand dollars. 
He accompanied his statement, by depositions from the Rev. Mr. 
Kirkland, James Dean, Judge Hollenbeck, and others, who were 
present at the treaty, in substance, to the effect that the treaty was 
conducted honorably, and fairly, and that Cornplanter was mista- 
ken as to the amount of the purchase money. 

In February, '91, Joseph Brant addressed a long letter to the su- 
perintendent of Indian affairs for the northern district of the United 

K'oTE. — It is to be inferred from i^-liat followed, that Cornplanter was more eloquent 
than honest in his speech to the President. Speaking of the consequences of the 
President turning a deaf ear to the complaijits of the Senecas, he said : — "You have 
said that we were in your hand, and that by closing it you could crush us to nothing. 
Ai-e you determined to crush us ? If you are, tell us so, that those of our nation who 
have become your children, and have determined to die so, may know what to do. In 
this case one chief has said he would ask you to put him out of pain. Anotlier, who 
will not think of dying by the hand of his father, has said he will retire to Chautau- 
que, eat of the fatal root, and sleep with his fathers in peace." Tliis was an allusion 
to the beautiful Seneca tiadition, that a young squaw once eat of a root she dug on 
the banks of the Chautauque Lake, which created thirst ; to slake it, she stooped down 
to drink of the waters of the Lake, and disappeared forever. Thence the name of 
the Lake ; — " Ja-da-qua," or the place of easy death, — where one disappears, and is 
eeen no more. 



PHELPS ANB GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 145 

States, in which he attacks Cornplanter with severity ; alleging 
that " influenced by bribes and other selfish views, he prevailed on 
the chiefs who were sent to cover up the council fire at Kanadesaga, 
kindled by John Livingston, to lease the whole of the Five Nation's 
country, for a consideration of twenty thousand dollars, and an an- 
nual rent of two thousand ; and it was with the utmost difficulty, 
that the Five Nations were able to move that lease, from off a por- 
tion of the country." He recapitulates the bargain made by Mr. 
Phelps, agreeing with other witnesses. He says that the Lessees 
were only released from the payment of five thousand of the twenty 
thousand they had agreed to pay for the whole country, and a pro 
rata amount of their stipulated annual rent.* This was to show, 
that the bargain with Mr. Phelps, was a better one even than Corn- 
planter had promoted with the Lessees. 

When Mr. Pickering held his council at Newtown, in July, '91, he 
examined several Cayuga and Onondaga chiefs, who stated that 
Cornplanter's allegations were untrue ; and some of the principal 
Seneca chiefs, stated to him that all was fair on Mr. Phelps' part, 
in reference to the treaty. 

But all this did not entirely quell the dissatisfaction, and the al- 
ledged wrong was mixed up with other elements, to render the 
earliest relations of Pioneers of the Genesee country and the Indi- 
ans, equivocal ; in a condition to keep up alarm and apprehensions 
of evil. If the Senecas themselves were mainly disposed to be 
friendly, their jealousies and resentments were kept alive, by the 
western Indians, and their British prompters, and British agents at 
Niagara. DO== See Mr. Phelps' speech to the Indians. Appendix, 
No. 6. 

The whole history of the early Indian treaties in this State, is a 
complex one ; there was a disjointed state of things existing among 
our own people ; the treaties began without any clear and definite 
understanding, of what were the respective rights of the State and 
the general government. The Indians, after they had heard of 
" one big fire being lighted for all the thirteen States," could not un- 
derstand why they should be invited to attend " so many httle fires," 



* The reader need hardly be told, that the poor Indians never realized the 6iim 
promised by the Lessees, except in the form of bribes to some of their chiefs ; and in 
that form but a small portion of it. And yet the Lessees in one form and another, 
realized a large amount for their illegal "long lease." 



146 PHELPS 

or councils. The almost interminable mischief, the Lessee move- 
ment, was thrust in to add to embarrassment. The close of the 
Revolution had left them with distracted councils, cut up into fac- 
tions themselves. No wonder that when they were pulled and 
hauled about from one treaty to another, beset by State commis- 
sioners. Lessee companies, speculators and " their old friends at 
Niagara," they should on several occasions have complained that 
their " heads were confused." 

But the crowning curse, the source of nearly all other evils that 
beset them, and nearly all that embarrassed our early relations and 
intercourse with their race, was the use of spirituous liquors. In 
the absence of them, the advent of our race to this continent, would 
have been a blessing to theirs, instead of what it has proved to be, 
the cause of their ruin, and gradual extermination. No where in a 
long career of discovery, of enterprize and extension of empire, 
have Europeans found natives of the soil, with as many of the 
noblest attributes of humanity ; moral and physical elements, which, 
if they could not have been blended with ours, could have main- 
tained a separate existence, and been fostered by the proximity of 
civilization and the arts. Every where, when first approached by 
our race, they w^elcomed it, and made demonstrations of friendship 
and peace. Savage, as they were called, savage as they may have 
been in their assaults and wars upon each other, there is no act of 
theirs recorded in our histories, of early colonization, of wrong or 
outrage, that was not provoked by assaults, treachery or deception — 
breaches of the hospitalities they had extended to the strangers. 
Whatever of savage character they may have possessed, so far as 
our race was concerned, it was dormant until aroused to action 
by assaults or treachery of intruders upon their soil, whom they had 
met and treated as friends. 

This was the beginning of trouble ; the cupidity of our race 
perpetuated it by the introduction of "fire water," which, vitiating 
their appetites, cost them their native independence of character, 
made them dependents upon the trader and the agents of rival 
governments ; mixed them up with factious and contending aspir- 
ants to dominion ; and from time to time, impelled them to the 
fields of blood and slaughter, or to the stealthy assault with the tom- 
ahawk and scalping knife. For the ruin of his race, the red man 
has a fearful account against us, since we assumed the responsibility 



PHELPS Am) goeham's puechase. 147 

of intercourse with it, as a separate and independent people ; but 
as in another instance, where another race is concerned, we may 
plead with truth and justice, that we were inheritors of the curse ; 
and that our predecessors are chargeable with having fixed the plague 
spot and stain upon us, indelibly, long before the responsibility de- 
volved upon us. 

From the hour that Henry Hudson toled the Indians on board of 
his vessel, on the river that bears his name, and gave them the first 
taste of spirituous liquors, the whole history of British intercourse 
with them is marked by the use of this accursed agent as a princi- 
pal means of success. The example of Hudson was followed up 
by all the Dutch and English traders upon the Mohawk, and when 
Sir William Johnson had settled as a British agent in the Mohawk 
valley, he had unfortunately learned the potent influence of spirit- 
uous liquors in Indian traffic and negotiation. He is probably the 
first that made use of them at Indian councils ; thus setting a vicious 
example that has been perpetuated. The early French traders upon 
the St. Lawrence, and in all this region, commenced the traffic not 
until after they had ascertained that they could in no way compete 
with the English traders than by using the same means. The early 
Jesuit Missionaries checked them in their work of evil, but the 
English trader was left unrestrained, even encouraged by English 
colonial authority. The Senecas, especially, naturally inclined to 
the French. There was something in the French character that was 
congenial to their natural preferences ; the two races met and 
flowed into each other, (if the expression is admissable,) like kindred, 
or easily assimilating elements ; with the English it was diffljrent; 
there was a natural repugnance, it may almost be said ; the blowze, 
turgid Englishman, and the Seneca who possessed generous and even 
romantic and poetic elements, were in caste and inclination, anti- 
podes. It was with his keg of rum, that the Englishman could alone 
succeed ; and with a morbid, sordid perseverance, he plied it in trade 
as well as diplomacy. It was rum that first enabled the Englishman 



Note. — From the first advent of tbe French FraucLscan and Jesuit Missionaries in 
this region, they were the determined opposers of the inti'oduction of spii-ituous 
liquors among the Indians. They would suppress it in the trading houses of their 
own countrymen, and at the risk of then- lives, knock out the heads of English rum 
casks. Tliey became, in some instances, martyrs in endeavoing to suppress the traffic. 
The first temperance essay the world ever saw other than the precepts of the Bible, 
was written in this region by a Jesuit Missionarj"-, and published in Paiis. 



148 PHELPS AND GOKHAJi's PUECHASE. 

to get a foothold upon the Hudson, upon the Mohawk, along the 
shores of Lake Ontario ; in the absence of its use, bold as the asser- 
tion may appear, he would not have succeeeded in putting an end to 
French dominion in America. 

At a later period, when the storm of the Revolution was gather- 
ing, the English resorted to the old weapon they had used against 
the French, to use against the colonies. The Indians had undoubt- 
edly resolved upon neutrality ; unsophisticated, unlearned in all the 
grievances of oppressed colonies, in the intricacies of taxation, 
representation, and the immunities under other structures of gov- 
ernment than their own, they could not understand why the bonds 
of kindred should be sundered ; why those they had just seen fight- 
ing side by side against the French should be arrayed against each 
other so suddenly. The aspect of the quarrel was not suited to 
their tastes or inclinations, and they resolved upon standing aloof; 
the Senecas at least. Invited to Oswego, by the English refugees 
from the Mohawk, kept intoxicated for days and weeks, promised 
there that the accursed "fire water" of England's King, should be 
as free to them " as the waters of Lake Ontario," their good inten- 
tions were changed, and their tomahawks and scalping knives were 
turned against the border settlers ; a series of events ensued, the 
review of which creates a shudder, and a wonder that the offences 
were so easily forgiven ; that we had not taken their country after 
subduing it with our arms, instead of treating for it. But well and 
humanely cHd the Father of his Country consider how they had been 
wiled to the unfortunate choice of friends which they made. Eng- 
lish rum was not only freely dealt out at Oswego, during the Revo- 
lution, but at Fort Niagara, where it paid for the reeking scalp, and 
helped to arouse the fiercest passions of Indian allies, and send 
them back upon their bloody track. 

When peace came, and our State authorities began to cultivate 
an acquaintance with the Indians, they found them deserted by 
their late British employers, with nothing to show for the sanguine 
aid they had given them, but appetites vitiated by the English rum 
cask, and a moral and physical degeneracy, the progress of which 
could not have been arrested ; and lingering yet among them, in all 
their principal localities, was the English or tory trader, prolonging 
his destructive traffic. It was American, New York legislation, 
that made the first statutes against the traffic of spirituous liquors 



PHELPS AND GOPtHAMS PUECHASE. 149 

among the Indians. It was American legislation, after the incubus 
of British dominion was shaken off, that first checked the slave 
trade. Two enormous offences have been committed against two 
races, both of which had been alike perpetuated under English do- 
minion. 



Mr. Phelps, although his residence in all the earliest years of set- 
tlement, was still in Massachusetts, spent most of his time in Can- 
andaigua, and was the active and liberal patron and helper in all 
the public enterprises of the region where he had been the pioneer. 
Of ardent temperament, ambitious in all that related to the pros- 
perity of the new country, the Pioneer settlers found in him a friend ; 
and when disease, privation, Indian alarms, created despondency, 
he had for them words of encouragement, and prophecies of a " bet- 
ter time." He was useful to a degree that no one can reaHze who 
has not seen how much one man can do in helping to smooth the 
always rugged paths of backwoods Ufe. 

A considerable shareholder in the original purchase of Massa- 
chusetts and the Indians, he eventually became a principal owner, 
by purchase of shares, reversions and other means. In a few years 
after the settlement of the Genesee country was fairly under way, 
he was regarded as one of the most successful and wealthy of all 
the many founders of new settlements of that period. In 1795, he 
regarded himself as worth a million of dollars. There are no busi- 
ness enterprises which, if successful, are better calculated to lead to 
excess and rash venture, than that of speculation in lands. A 
mania of land speculation, as will be seen in another connection, 
commenced along in '95 and '6, and extended through all the then 
settled parts of the Union. Philadelphia was the principal focus, 
its leading capitalists, among whom was Mr. Morris, were the prin- 
cipal operators. Among the devices of the times, was a gigantic 
" American Land Company." Elected to Congress, Mr. Phelps, 
elated with his success in the Genesee country, was thrown into 
the vortex of rash adventure, and became deeply involved, as all 
were who made any considerable ventures at that unfortunate 
period. One of his ventures was in connection with the "Georgia 
Land Company ;" with the fate of which, most readers will be 
familiar. Liabilities abroad made him a large borrower, and obliged 



150 PHELPS AOT) GORHAM's PUECHASE. 

him to execute mortgages upon his Genesee lands. In all this, the 
titles of purchasers under him became involved, which created dis- 
trust and excitement among a portion of the settlers, and brought 
upon him a good deal of censure. His reverses, and the appre- 
hensions, perhaps, that others were to be involved in them, preying 
upon a sensitive mind, his health gradually declined, and he died in 
1809, aged 60 years. In 1802, he had removed to Canandaigua ; 
and from the commencement of his reverses up to the period of his 
death, had been struggling to extricate himself, and others involved 
with him, from embarrassment. In allusion to all this, an inscrip- 
tion upon his tomb-stone contains the following sentence : — 

" Enterprise, Industry and Temperance, can not always secure success ; but the 
fruits of those vh-tues, will be felt by society." 

The State of Connecticut having been a principal creditor of 
Mr. Phelps, and holding a large mortgage upon his lands, the Hon. 
Gideon Granger became its agent, and ultimately the settlement of 
the estate devolved upon him. When he entered upon the task, he 
was assisted in some of its preliminary investigations by the late 
Jessee Hawley, Esq., who, in a memorandum which the author has 
in his possession, remarks that the estate was involved in " com- 
plexity, perplexity and confusion." The superior business facul- 
ties of Mr. Granger, however, made " crooked things straight ;" 
debts were cancelled, land titles cleared from incumbrances ; no 
purchasers under Mr. Phelps, it is believed, ultimately suffered loss ; 
and a considerable estate was saved to his heirs. Among the sur- 
viving early Pioneers, it is common now to hear expressions of re- 
spect for the memory of Oliver Phelps, and regrets, that the last 
years of his active and enterprising life was so clouded by misfor- 
fortune. Jesse Hawley wrote that he was " the Cecrops of the 
Genesee country. Its inhabitants owe a mausoleum to his memo- 
ry, in gratitude for his having pioneered for them the wilderness of 
this Canaan of the west." 

Mr. Phelps was first judge of Ontario, on the primitive organiza- 
tion of its courts ; and was an early Representative in Congress, 
from the then western district of this State. 

He left a son and daughter. His son, Oliver Leicester Phelps, 
was educated at Yale College, married a grand-daughter of Roger 
Sherman, and became a resident of Paris, France. Returning to 
this country, after the death of his father, he became the ocrupant 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 151 

of the old Phelps' mansion at Canandalgua ; was atone period Maj. 
General of the 22d Division of New York Infantry. He died in 
1813. His surviving sons are: — Judge Oliver Phelps, of Canan- 
dalgua, who resides at the old homestead, a worthy representative 
of his honored ancestor ; William H. Phelps, of Canandaigua ; and 
Francis Phelps, an inmate of the Infirmary at Brattleborough, 
Vermont. The daughter of Oliver Phelps became the wife oi 
Amasa Jackson, of the city of New York, and is now a resi- 
dent of Canandaigua. A daughter of hers, is the wife of Gen. 
John A. Granger ; and another, is the wife of Alexander H. Hov/ell, 
a son of the Hon. N. W. Howell. The wife of Oliver Phelps, who 
was the daughter of Zachariah Seymour, died in 1826, aged 74 
years. 



Nathaniel Gorham, the elder, who was the associate of Mr. 
Phelps, was never a resident upon the Purchase. He resided irt 
Charlestown, Mass. His son, Nathaniel Gorham, jr., his local repre- 
sentative, came to Canandaigua in 1789, and was of course one of 
the earliest pioneers. He was an early Supervisor of Canandaigua, 
a Judge of the county courts, and the President of the Ontario 
Bank, from its first organization, until his death. He died in 1826, 
aged 62 years. His surviving sons are : — Nathaniel Gorham, mer- 
chant, of Canandaigua ; William Gorham, of Canandaigua ; and 
David Gorham, of Exeter, New Hampshire. Mrs. Dr. A. G. Bris- 
tol, of Rochester, is a daughter ; and an unmarried daughter resides 
at the old homestead at Canandaigua. The mother died in 1848, 
at the advanced age of 83 years. 

And in this connection, lest he should be omitted in a work like 
this — as he should not be — some mention should be made of the 
venerable William Wood, who, if not a pioneer himself, is especial- 
ly the friend of the pioneers ; and among his other good works, 
takes a lively interest in perpetuating their memories. Mr. Wood 
is a veteran bachelor, the brother of the late Mrs. Nathaniel Gor- 
ham. His native place is Charlestown, Massachusetts. At one 
period of his Hfe, he was an importing merchant in the city of Bos- 
ton ; after that, a cotton dealer in New Orleans, where he was 
known for his deeds of philanthropy and benevolence. Becoming 
a resident of Canandaigua, by quiet unostentatious charities, by 



152 PHELPS AKD GORHAil's PURCHASE. 

being " present in every good work, " he has well entitled himself to 
be called the Howard of his local region. The public edifices of 
Canandaigua, the rural church-yard, the streets and side-walks, the 
public libraries, bear testimonials of his public spirit. If no other 
good work is in hand, he will carry apples, books, and other accept- 
able presents, to the inmates of the jail, and cheer them by kind 
words. In cities and villages of this country and in England, he 
has established libraries and literary institutions, principally for the 
benefit of mechanics, apprentices and clerks. Well may it be said, 
that the world v/ould be better, the picture of humanity v»'0uld have 
in it more of lighter coloring, if there were more like William 
Wood. But, principally, it has been intended to notice him in con- 
nection with a Gallery of Portraits — mostly of Pioneers of the 
Genesee country — that he is collecting and suspending in their 
well-chosen and appropriate place, the court-house at Canandaigua. 
It contains already the portraits of — 

Oliver Phelps, Augustus Porter, 

Peter B. Porter. John Greig, 

Philip Church, James Wadsworth, 

Wm. Wadsworth, Red Jacket, 

MicAH Brooks, Nathaniel Rochester, 

Vincent MathewS; Jasper Parrish, 

Abner Barlow, Judge Fitzhugh, 

Walter Hubbell, Ambrose Spencer, 

John C. Spencer, Willia.m Williams. 

Moses Atwater, N. W. Howell. 

And a correspondent adds : — " William Wood, the noblest Ro- 
man of them all." 



PHELPS AND GOEHASl's PUECHASE. 153 



CHAPTER V 



JEMIMA WILKINSON. 



This eccentric founder of a religious sect, and her followers, 
having been the Pioneers of the entire Genesee country, preceding 
even the Indian treaties for acquiring land titles ; and having con- 
stituted in early days a prominent feature in all this region ; some 
account of them, it may well be supposed, will be looked for in a 
work of this character. 

Jemima Wilkinson, or, as she was called by her followers, " The 
Friend," or " The Universal Friend," was a daughter of Jeremiah 
Wilkinson of Cumberland, Rhode Island. She was one of a family 
of twelve children. The father was a respectable ordinary New 
England farmer. When Jemima was in her 20th year, the entire 
family, except her, had a severe attack of fever ; and after their 
recovery, she was attacked, and her sickness was severe and pro- 
tracted, at times her hfe being despaired of In the extremity of her 
illness, her friends had assembled around her bed side to witness 
her death, when, as she affirmed, it was suddenly revealed to her 
that she must "raise her dead body." She arose from her bed, and 
kneeling by its side, made a fervent prayer, called for her clothing, 
and announced that her carnal existence had ended ; henceforw^ard 
she was but divine and spiritual ; invested with the gift of prophe- 
cy.* She soon commenced travelling and exhorting, and with a 
considerable degree of success ; followers multiplied, some of them 
good New England farmers. They soon furnished all her wants, 
and would accompany her sometimes to the number of twenty, on 
her missions. She travelled through New England, Eastern New 
York, and spent several years in the neighborhood of Philadelphia 



* This is briefly, her own account of her sudden transformation, as related to an in- 
formant of the author, who knew her well, before and after her advent to this region. 
10 



154 PHELrs AKD goeham's puechase. 

and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, accompanied by most of her follow- 
ers; and she had proselytes wherever she went. Her authority 
over them was absolute. Upon one occasion, at New Milford, in 
Connecticut, she proclaimed a fast for thirty days on bread and 
water. Most of them strictly obeyed ; some of them becoming 
almost what Calvin Edson was in later years. After remaining in 
New England and Pennsylvania about twenty years, she came to 
Western New York ; she was then near forty years of age. The 
author has a copy of the " New Haven Gazette and Connecticut 
Magazine," of date, March 1787, that has a letter in it from a 
Philadelphia correspondent, written at the time " The Friend," and 
her followers were in Philadelphia, on their way to this region. 
Her personal appearance is thus described : — " She is about the 
middle size of woman, not genteel in her person, rather awkward in 
her carriage ; iier complexion good, her eyes remarkably black and 
brilliant, her hair black and waving with beautiful ringlets upon her 
neck and shoulders ; her features are regular, and the whole of her 
face thought by many to be perfectly beautiful. As she is not to be 
supposed of cither sex, so this neutrality is manifest in her personal 
appearance: — She wears no cap, letting her hair hang down as 
has been described. She wears her neckcloth like a man ; her chemise 
is buttoned around the neck and wrists. Her outside garment is a 
robe, under which it is said she wears an expensive dress, the fash- 
ion of which is made to correspond neither with that of a man nor 
woman. Her understanding is not deficient, except touching her 
religious fanatacism. She is very illiterate, yet her memory is very 
great ; artful in discovering many circumstances which fall out 
among her disciples. On all occasions she requires the most extra- 
ordinary attentions that can be bestowed upon her; one or more 
of her disciples usual!}- attend upon her, and perform the most 
)nenial service. Her pronunciation is after the peculiar dialect of 
the most illiterate of the country people of New England. Her 
preaching has very little connexion, and is very lengthy ; at times 
cold and languid, but occasionally lively, zealous and animated." 

Enlarging upon the account she first gave of her rising from a 
bed of sickness — dead in the flesh — she assumed that there was 
once such a person as Jemima Wilkinson, but that " she died and 
went to heaven ; after which the Divine Spirit re-animated that 
same body, and it arose from the dead ; now this divine inhabitant 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAM'S PUECHASE. i05 

is Christ Jesus our Lord, the friend to all mankind, and gives his 
name to the body to which he is united, and therefore, body and 
spirit conjointly, is the "Universal Friend." She assumed to have 
two "witnesses," corresponding in all respects to those prophecied 
in Rev. Chap, xi, from 3d to 13th verse. These were James Par- 
ker and Sarah Richards. 

But the reader will be principally interested in the advent of this 
singular personage and her followers to the Genesee country : — 
Previous to 1786, they were living in detached localities. In that 
year, they met in Connecticut, and resolved upon finding some "fer- 
tile unsettled region, far from towns and cities, where the ' Univer- 
sal Friend " and her followers, might live undisturbed in peace and 
plenty, in the enjoyment of their peculiar religion.' They delega- 
ted three of their number, Abraham Dayton, Richard Smith and 
Thomas Hathaway to look for such a location. They went to 
Philadelphia and traversed on horseback the interior of Pennsylva- 
nia. Passing through the valley of Wyoming, they came across a 
backwoodsman by the name of Spalding, who furnished them with 
a glimpse of the region around Seneca Lake, and gave them direc- 
tions how to find it. Following his directions, they went up the 
river, and falling upon the track of Sullivan's army, reached the 
foot of Seneca Lake, and from thence proceeded to Cashong creek, 
where they found two French traders, (De Bartzch and Poudry,) 
who told them that they had travelled through Canada, and through 
the Western territory, and had seen no where so fine a country as the 
one they were in. A few days exploration, satisfied the land look- 
ers, and they returned by the route they came, to inform the Friend 
of the result of their travels. 

In June 1787, twenty five of the Friends, among whom were 



Note.— At a time when the Friend aud her followers, wereUkely to loo.se their first 
location upon the banks of the Seneca Lake, .and were havins^ some (Jifficulty with 
their neighbors, Abraham Dayton was deputied to go to Canada, and negotiate with 
Gov. Simcoe, for a grant of land for a new location. Gov. Simcoe acceded, and made 
a gi-ant in the present townsliip of Burford, C. W. Prepai-ations were made to emi- 
grate when the Governor annuUcd his grant. He gave as an excuse that he had -sup- 
posed them to be Quakers, of whom he had acquired a good opinion in England; 
biit learning that they were a new sect, he did not wish to encourage their emigration' 
He however made the grant to Col. Dayton individuaUy, upon such terms,— settle- 
ment duties (fee— as he was then in the habit of making land grants. OA. Dayton 
settled upon the land, died in early years, and was succeecled by his son-ja-law Ben- 
ajah Mallory. The aged widow of Col. Dayton, who became the wife of Col Joel 
btone, the toundcr of the village of Ganauoque, below Kingston, died but a few years 



156 PHELPS AND G0EHA3l's PUECHASE. 

Abel Botsford, Peleg and John Briggs, and Isaac Nichols, with their 
families, met at Schenectady, and embarked on board of batteaux 
for the promised land. At Geneva they found but a solitary log 
house, and that not finished, " inhabited by one Jennings." They 
went up the east side of the Lake to " Apple Town," where they 
remained several days searching for a mill site. The noise of the 
falling water, of the outlet of Crooked Lake, attracted them to the 
west shore of Seneca Lake. Passing up th6 outlet they came to 
the Falls, and exploring the neighborhood, fixed upon it as their 
location. They began their settlement in Yates County, about one 
mile south of the present village of Dresden. It was August when 
they arrived. They prepared ground and sowed a field of wheat 
in common, and the next season, 1789, several small fields of wheat 
were sown.* 

The first land purchase was made of the State, upon the " Gore," 
previous to the running of the new pre-emption line. It was a 
tract of 14,000 acres, situated in the east pai't of the present town 
of Milo, and south east part of Starkey. William Potter and 
Thomas Hathaway were delegated to make the purchase. They 
applied to Governor George Clinton for a grant of land, v/hich was 
refused of course, but he assured them that if they would attend 
the public sale in Albany, they would be able to obtain land at a 
satisfactory price. They attended the sale and bought the tract 
above named for a little less then 2s per acre. Benedict Robinson 
and Thomas Hathaway, soon after bought of Phelps and (xorham 
the town of Jerusalem for Is 3d per acre.f 

The first grist mill in Western New York, was built by three of 
the society ; — Richard Smith, James Parker and Abraham Dayton. 
The site was the one now occupied by the " Empire Mills," two 
and a half miles from Penn Yan. It was built in the summer and 
fall of 1789 and flour was made in it in that year. Here also was 



* This coiTects the yeiy common impression, that the first ■wheat was harvested at 
Canandaigna, and Victor, in the fall of 1790. The wheat sown by the Friends must 
have been harvested in 1789. 

tit vasai-ule at that early period, with Messrs. Phelps <fe Gorham, in selling a 
picked township, to require the purchaser to draw for another township at the same 
price. Robinson and Hathaway after purchasing Jerusalem, drew what is now the 
town of Geneseo. The Friend objected to her people " trading and buying property 
at a distance,-' and fearing her displeasure, they prevailed upon Mr. Phelps to relojuse 
them from the 'oargain, which he was quite willing to do, as he had ascertained the 
value of the township. 



PHELPS AISTD GOEHAm's PUKCHASE. 15T 

opened the first public house by David Waggener. A son of his, 
Abraham Waggener of Penn Yan, now 76 years of age, well re- 
members seeing the French Duke, Liancourt, at his father's inn.* 
The first framed house in the Genesee country, was built by Enoch 
and Elijah Malin, as a residence for " The Friend." The house is 
still standing, and is occupied by Charles J. Townsend. It is a mile 
north of Dresden, and a half a mile east of S. B. Buckleys. The 
first school in the Genesee country, was opened by Rachel Malin in 
a log room attached to this house. In 1789, a log meeting house 
was built in which " The Friend" preached, and met with her fol- 
lowers. This house stood a few rods south of the residence of S. 
B. Buckley. But this is anticipating pioneer events that belong in 
another connexion. 

Major Benajah Mallory, well known in all this region during the 
war of 1812, is yet living, in Lockport, Niagara County. He is 
spoken of in a preceding note as having married the daughter of 
Abraham Dayton. This family connexion, (or then anticipated one,) 
brought him to the Friend's settlement at an early period after it was 
founded. He was the first merchant there ; and in fact, opened the 
first store in the Genesee Country, other than those connected with 
the Indian trade. From him the author has obtained many remin- 
iscences, some of which are applicable to the subject in hand. He 
gives the names of principal heads of families who were followers 
of " The Friend," and located in the settlement during the earliest 
years : — Abraham Dayton, William Potter, (father of Arnold Pot- 
ter) Asahel Stone, John Supplee, Richard Smith, David Waggener, 
James Parker, Samuel Lawrence, Benj. Brown, Elnathan and Jon- 
athan Botsford, Jessee Brown, Jessee Holmes, Joshua Brown, Barn- 
abus Brown, Nathaniel Ingraham, Eleazor Ingraham, David Culver, 
David Fish, Beloved Luther, John Gibbs, Jacob Waggener, Wm. 
Sanford, John Barnes, Elijah Brown, Silas Hunt, Castle Dean, Jon- 
athan Dean, Benedict Robinson, Thomas Hathaway. Besides these ' 
there were unmarried men, and men and women who had been 
separated in adhering to the Friend. The followers were mostly 

The inn" says the Duke iu his Travels which contained but two rooms, we found 
ah-eady full ; some person who intended to buy land near the Great Sodus, and Capt. 
Williamson's agent who was to sell it to them, had taken possession before our arriral.' 
After an American supper consisting of coffee and boiled ham, we aU lay down to 
rest in the same room. There was only two beds for ten persons ; inconsequence, these 
two beds were occupied by four of ns, and the others lay down in then- clothes upon 
the straw." ^ 



158 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PTJECHASE. 

respectable men of small property ; some of them had enough to be 
called rich in those days. Those who had considerable property 
gave her a part, or were at least liberal in supplying her wants. 
Man and wife were not separated ; but they were forbidden to 
multiply. A few transgressed, but obtained absolution by confes- 
sing and promising not to disobey again. It was generally a well 
regulated community, its members mostly lived in harmony, were 
temperate and industrious. They had two days of rest in the week, 
Saturday and Sunday. At their meetings the Friend would gener- 
ally speak, take a text preach and exhort and give liberty to others 
to speak. The Friend appeared much devoted to the interests of 
her followers, and especially attentive to them in sickness. Major 
Mallory insists that the old story of her promising to " walk on the 
water" is wholly false. When Col. Pickering held his treaty with the 
Indians at Newtown Point, nearly five hundred Senecas encamped 
at Friends' Landing on Seneca Lake. They were accompanied by 
Red Jacket, Cornplanter, and Good Peter, (the Indian preacher.) 
the Rev. Mr. Kirkland, Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish. Good 
Peter wanted an interview with the " Universal Friend." She ap- 
pointed a meeting-with the Indians and preached to them, Good 
Peter followed her, and the Friend wanted his discourse interpre- 
ted. Good Peter objected, saying : — "if she is Christ, she knows 
what I said." This was the meeting upon the bank of Seneca Lake, 
that gave rise to the report alluded to. 

The Friend did not join her colony until the spring of 1789. She 
then came with a reinforcement, a somewhat formidable retinue.* 
Benedict Robinson, the most considerable property holder among 
her followers, gave her 1000 acres of land, upon which she resided.f 

* William Hencher, the Pioneer at the mouth of the Genesee River, then lived at 
Newtown Point, and helped her on "with his teams through the woods, to Catherines- 
town. His surviving son who accompanied the expedition, well remembers " The 
Friend," her singular dress, and singularity as it seemed to liim,of a woman controlling 
and directing men in all things appertaining to the journey. It seemed to him a " one 
woman power," if the form of expression may be chann-ed with the sex ; yet he 
gratefully remembers her kindness and hospitality, when his father's family came 
through the wilderness, and stopped at her residence, on their way to the Genesee 
River. 

t The author has several letters of Mr. Robinson, written to Messrs. "Wadsworth, 
Williamson, and others, and he is often alluded to in early reminiscences. The Duke, 
Liancourt visited him in 1795, and says of him ; — " This Benedict Robinson is a mUd, 
sensible and well behaved man,resideson an estate of 500 acres, 150 of which are im- 
proved." '■ Last year he sold a thousand pounds of cheese at a shilling a jwund." 
" He does not plough his land, but contents himself with breaking it up with a har- 
row. Altliough he says that Mr. Robinson had been a " zealous disciple of the " All 
Friend," he inferred from his conversation tliat his confidence in her divine mission 



PHELPS AM) GORHAm's PURCHASE. 159 

Her business would seem to have been conducted by her female 
witmess, Sarah Richards, who did not arrive at the settlement until 
June, 1789. Some correspondence of hers, and memorandums, 
have been preserved : — 

"Jerusalem, 1st of 6t!i mo., 1791. 

"I arrived with Rachel Malin, Elijah Mahn, E.Mehitable Smith, Maria, and most of 
the Friend's family, and the goods which the Friend sent Ehjah to assist in bringing 
oil. "We all arrived on the west side of Seneca Lake, and reached the Friend's house, 
which The Universal Friend had got built for our reception ; and with great joy, met 
The Friend once more in time, and all in walking health, and as well as usual. 

"SARAH RICHARDS." 

"In the year '91, settled with Elijah Malin, being in trust for The Universal Friend. 
At this time, reckoned and settled with him for building The Friend's house, and pass- 
ed receipts the 24th of the sixth month, 1791. SARAH RICHARDS." 

"Reckoned and settled^with Richard Hathaway for goods which tlie carpenters took 
up at his store for building The Friend's jhouse in Jerusalem. Settled, I say, this 3d 
of the 7th month, 1791. SARAH RICHARDS." 

"About the 26th of the 7th month, 1791,1 and Rachel Mahn were taken sick about 
the time of wheatharvest, and remained sick, and were not able to go out of the house 
until the ground was covered with snow ; but entirely confined to our chamber, whicli 
finished up the year 1791. SARAH RICHARDS." 

Sarah Richards died in '94 or '5, and was succeeded in all her 
relations to The Friend, by Rachel Mahn. The father of The 
Friend never became her convert, but her brother, Stephen, and 
sisters, Mercy, Betsey and Deborah, followed her in her advent to 
this region. 

The meetings of this singular sect, were conducted very much 

was somewhat weakened. The Duke might have added a circumstance that had 
somewhat interfered with the relations of the Friend and one of her most prominent 
disciples. He had infracted one of lier rules, by niaiTying. He was in this way, the 
first transgressor among the followers. Susannah Brown had been his houskeeper. 
Thos. Hathaway having business with Benedict earl}' one morning, went to Iiis house 
where he found Mr. Wilhamson, who told him that Benedict being unwell was yet 
in bed. Mr. Williamson leading the way, they both went up stairs and found Bene- 
dict in bed with his housekeeper, Susannah ; " Good .Lord I Benedict, what does this 
mean ?" was the ejaculation and inteiTogation of Thomas, accompanied by anuphfting 
of hia hands, in token of astonishment and horror, at what he called "shameful, sin- 
ful, and disgraceful." Mr. Williamson replied : — "Why, Benedict got tu-ed of sleeping 
alone, and crept in bed with Susannah." Thomas hastened to inform The Friend, 
who was displeased, but avoided an open rapture, with one whose position and influence 
Tnade him too valuable to admit of excommunication. The harsh features of the affair 
were soon softened, by Mr. Williamson, who announced that he was then on his way 
from Canandaigua, wlicrc he had taken out his commission as a Judge of Ontario county, 
and had legally married Benedict and Susannah before they had ventm-ed to place 
themselves in the position in which Thomas had found them. The eccenh-ic marriage 
proved a happy one to the parties, whatever it may have been with the ofiended Jemi- 
ma. The living descendants in the fu'st degree, of the offending Benedict and Susan- 
nah, are : — Dr. Daniel Robinson of Farmiiigton, Ont. county ; Mrs. Dr. Hatmaker of 
Milo, Yates county ; James C. Robinson. P. M., Feim Yan ; and Phoebe, a maiden 
daughter, who resides at the old homestead. 



160 PHELPS iJ^D GOEHAjM's PUECHASE. 

after the manner of the legitimate Society of Friends. The con- 
gregation would sit in silence until some one would rise and speak. 
While The Friend lived, she would generally lead in the public 
speaking, and after her, Rachel Malin. In addition to this, and the 
usual observance of a period of silence, with each family, upon sit- 
ting down to their meals, " sittings" in each family, upon Sunday 
evenings, was common. The family would observe perfect silence 
for an hour or more, and then rise and shake hands. " I remem- 
ber," says Mr. Buckley, " when I was a boy, many such ' sittings ' 
at my grand-father's, and I always rejoiced when they commenced 
shaking hands to end the tiresome stillness." 

It has already been observed, that the French Duke, Liancourt, 
visited The Friend's settlement in 1795. He became much inter- 
ested in the new sect, made the acquaintance of The Friend, was 
a guest, with his travelling companions, at her house, and attended 
her meetings. For one so generally liberal and candid, he writes 
of all he saw there in a vein of censure, in some respects, unde- 
served. She and her followers, were then at variance with their 
neighbors, and the Duke too readily listened to gossip that implica- 
ted the private character of this founder of a sect, and added them 
to his (justifiable, perhaps,) denunciations of religious imposture. 
Her real character was a mixed one : — Her first incentives were 
the imagininas of a mind highly susceptible of religious enthusiasm, 
and strongly tinctured with the supernatural and spiritual, which, 
in our own day, has found advocates, and has been systematized in- 
to a creed. The physical energies prostrated by disease, the 
dreamy mind went out, and, following its inclinations, wandered 
in celestial spheres, and in a " rapt vision," created an image, some- 
thing to be or to personate. Disease abating, consciousness return- 
ing, this image had made an impress upon the mind not to be readily 
effaced. She became an enthusiast ; after events, made her an im- 
postor. All founders of sects, upon new revelations, have not had 
even so much in the way of induction to mitigate their frauds. A 
sect that has arisen in our own day, now counting its tens of thou- 
sands, the founders of a State, have nothing to show as their basis, 
but a bald and clumsy cheat ; a designed and pre-meditated fraud. 
It had no even distempered religious enthusiasm ; no sick man or 
sick woman's fancy to create a primitive semblance of sincerity or 
integrity of purpose. The trance or dream of Jemima Wilkinson, 



PHELPS AISTD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 161 

honestly enough promulgated at first, while the image of its creation 
absorbed all her thoughts and threw around her a spell that reason 
could not dissipate, attracted the attention of the superstitious and 
credulous, and, perhaps, the designing. The motives of worldly 
ambition, power, distinction ; the desire to rule, came upon her 
when the paroxism of disease in body and mind had subsided, and 
made her what history must say she was, an impostor and false 
pretender. 

And yet there were many evidences that motives of benevolence, 
a kindly spirit, a wifih to promote the temporal wellfare of her fol- 
lowers, was mixed up with her impositions. Her character was a 
compound. If she was conscious herself of imposition, as we must 
suppose she was, her perseverence was most extraordinary. Never 
thi'ough her long career did she for one moment yield the preten- 
sions she made upon rising from her sick bed and going out upon 
her mission. With gravity and dignity of demeanor, she would 
confront cavillers and disbehevers, and parry their assaults upon 
her motives and pretensions ; almost awing them to a surren- 
der of their doubts and disbelief. Always self-possessed, no evidence 
could ever be obtained of any misgivings with her, touching her 
spiritual claims. Upon one occasion James Wads worth called to 
see her. At the close of the interview, she said : — '' Thou art a 
lawyer ; thou hast plead for others ; hast thou ever plead for thyself 
to the Lord ?" Mr. Wadsworth made a courteous reply, when re- 
questing all present to kneel with her, she prayed fervently, after 
which she rose, shook hands with Mr. Wadsworth, and retired to 
her apartment. 

The reader must make some allowances for the strong prejudices 
of the French Duke, who upon the whole, made but poor returns 
for the hospitalities he acknowledges. He says : — " She is con- 
stantly engaged in personating the part she has assumed ; she des- 
canted in a sanctimonious, mystic tone, on death, and on the happi- 
ness of having been an instrument to others, in the way of their 
salvation. She gave us a rhapsody cf prophecies to read, ascribed 
to Dr. Love, who was beheaded in Cromwell's time. Her hypoc- 
risy may be traced in all her discourses, actions and conduct, and 
even in the very manner in which she manages her countenance ." 

The Friend's community, at first flourishing and successful, began 
to decline in early years. The seclusion and separation from the 



162 PHELPS AND GOEHAMS PUPvCnASE. 

world, contemplated by its founders was not realized. They had 
selected too fine a region to make a monopoly of it. The tide of 
emigration reached them, and before they had got fairly under way, 
they were surrounded with neighbors who had little faith in The 
Friend, or sympathy with her followers. The relations of neigh- 
borhood, town and county soon clashed, militia musters came, and 
the followers refused the service ; fin^^s were imposed and their 
property sold. The Friend was a long time harrassed with indict- 
ments for blasphemy, but never convicted. While she could keep 
most of her older followers in the harness, the younger ones remind- 
ed of the restraints imposed upon them, by contrasting their privi- 
leges with their disbelieving neighbors, would unharness themselves ; 
one after another following the early example of Benedict Robinson. 
Tw^o of that early class of methodist circuit preachers,* that were 
so indefatiguable in threading the wood's roads of this western 
forest, as were their Jesuit predecessors a century before them, 
found the retreat, and getting a foothold, in a log scliool house, 
gradually drew many of the young people to their meetings. Many 
of the sons and daughters of the followers abjured the faith. 

Jemima Wilkinson died in 1819, or departed, went away, as the 
implicit believers in her divine character would have it. Rachel 
Malin, her successor in spiritual as well as worldly affairs, died 
about three years since. She kept up the meetings until a few 
years previous to her death. James Brown, and George Clark, who 
married heirs of Rachel Malin, own the property that she inherited 
from The Friend. The peculiar sect may be said to be extinct ; 
not more than three or four are living who even hold lightly to the 
original faith. Even the immediate successors of Jemima and 
Rachel, the inheritors of the property, and those who should be 
conservators of their memories, if not of their faith, are forgetful 
of their teachings. The old homestead, the very sanctuary of the 
Universal Friend, once with all things appertaining to it, so chast- 
ened by her rigid discipline ; is even desecrated. During this pi^esent 
winter the sounds of music and dancing have come from within its 
once consecrated and venerated walls. QCj^For an interesting 
sketch of Jemima Wilkinson and her followers, copied from the 
manuscripts of Thomas Morris, see Appendix, No. 7. 

* Revs. James Smith and Jolin Broadhead. 



PAUT THIRD 



CHAPTER I, 



COMMENCEMENT OF SURVEYS, AND SETTLEMENT OF THE GENESEE 

COUNTRY. 



[Pioneer settlements ■w^ill be taken up in this connection, by counties, as tliey now 
exist. The arrangement mil not allow of strict reference to the order of time in 
•which events occurred ; but it ■will be found more convenient for the reader than any 
other that could be adoj^ted. 

After Mr. Phelps had concluded the treaty, — before leaving the 
country he made arrangements for its survey into Ranges and Town- 
ships. This was done under contract, by Col. -Hugh Maxwell, who 
completed most of the northern portion of it previous to the close 
of the year 1788; and in the year 1789, with the assistance of 
Judge Porter, he completed the whole. The survey of townships 
into farm lots, in cases where whole townships were sold, was done 
at the expense of the purchasers. Judge Porter, Frederick Saxton, 
Jenkins, were among the earliest surveyors of the subdivis- 
ions. 

Mr. Phelps having selected the foot of Canandaigua Lake, as a 
central locality in the purchase, and as combining all the advanta- 
ges which has since made it pre-eminent, even among the beautiful 
villages of western New York, erected a building for a store house 
on the bank of the Lake. The next movement was to make some 
primitive roads, to get to and from the site that had been selected. 
Men were employed at Geneva, who underbrushed and continued 
a sleigh road, from where it had been previously made on Flint creek, 
to the foot of Canandaigua Lake, following pretty much the old 



164 PHELPS AND GOEHASl's PUECHASE. 

Indian trail. When this was done, a wagon road was made near 
where Manchester now is, the head of navigation on the Canandai- 
gua outlet. No one wintered at Canandaigua in 1788, '9. Early 
in the spring of 1789, before the snow was off the ground, Joseph 
Smith moved his family from Geneva, and occupied the log store 
house ; thus making himself the first settler, west of Seneca Lake. 
Soon after his arrival he built a block house upon Main street, upon 
the rise of ground from the Lake, where he opened a tavern. His 
first stock of liquors was obtained from Niagara, U. C. He went 
after them from the mouth of Genesee river, in a canoe ; on his 
return, his frail craft was foundered' in a gale, at the mouth of the 
Oak Orchard creek ; but he saved most of his stock, and carried it 
to Canandaigua on pack horses. This primitive tavern, and the 
rude store house on the Lake, furnished a temporary stopping place 
for those who arrived in the spring and summer of 1789. 

Early in May 1789, Gen. Israel Chapin arrived at Canandaigua, 
and selected it as his residence, erecting a log house near the outlet ; 
— connected with him, and with surveys and land sales that were 
contemplated, were some eight or ten others, who came at the same 
time. They came by water, even into the lake, though this was 
about the only instance that batteaux went higher up the out-let 
than Manchester. There were, of these early adventurers, besides 
Gen. Chapin: — Nathaniel Gorham jr., Frederick Saxton, Benjamin 
Gardner, and Daniel Gates. Soon after Mr. Walker, an agent of 
Phelps and Gorham arrived with a party, built and opened a log 
land office on the site which Mr. Phelps afterwards selected for his 
residence. Others came during the summer, who will be named in 
another connection, and before the sitting in of winter there was a 
pretty good beginning of a new settlement. Judge John H. Jones, 
a brother of Capt. Horatio Jones, — who still survives to remember 



XoTE. — Joseph Smith -vras captured by the Indians at Cheiry Valley, during the 
Border Wars. Like others he had chosen to remain arsong them. His stay at 
Cauandaigiia was but a brief one, as he was soon employed as an Indian interpreter. 
At the Morris treaty at Geueseo, the Indians gave to him and Horatio Jones six square 
miles of land on the Genesee river. They sold one half of the tract to Ohrcr Phelps 
and Daniel Peniield, and Smith soon after parted with his remaining quarter. He was 
an open hearted generous man, possessed in fact of many good qualities ; endorsed for 
his friends, was somewhat improvident, and soon lost most of the rich gift of the Indi- 
ans. He was well known upon the river in some of the earhest years of settlement. 
He died in early years ; his death was occasioued by an accident at a ball play, in 
Leicester. A daughter of his — a Mrs. Dutton, resides at Utica with her son-in-law. 
Dr. Bissell, late Canal Commissioner. 



PHELPS AND GOjRHAm's PUKCHASE. 165 

with great distinctness, early events, was one of the party who 
opened the road from Geneva to Canandaigua, and from Canandai- 
gua to the landing place on the outlet, in 1788, revisited the locaHty 
again in August, in 1709. He says : — " There was a great change. 
When we left in the fall of '88 there was not a solitary person 
there ; when I returned fourteen months afterwards the place was 
full of people ; — residents, surveyors, explorers, adventurers ; houses 
were going up ; it was a busy, thriving place." 

Mrs. Hannah Sanborn, is now the oldest surviving resident of 
the village ; and with few exceptions, the oldest upon Phelps and 
Gorham's purchase. She is now in her 8Sth year, exhibiting but 
little of the usual infirmities of that advanced age, with faculties, 
especially that of memory of early events, but slightly impaired. 
The author found her in high spirits, even gay and humorous, en- 
joying the hearty laugh of middle age, when her memory called up 
some mirthful reminiscence. Upon her table were some of the " 
latest publications, and she alluded in conversation to Headly's fine 
descriptions in his " Sacred Mountains," as if she had enjoyed them 
with all the zest of her younger days. She had just finished a letter 
in a fair hand, shewing but little of the tremor of age, which was to 
be addressed to a great grand daughter. To her, is the author 
largely indebted for reminiscences of early Pioneer events at Can- 
andaigua. 

Early in the spring of 1790, Mr. Sanborn came with his wife and 
two young children to Schenectady, where he joined Judah Colt, 
and the two chartered a boat, with which they came to the head 
of navigation on the Canandaigua outlet.* Mr. Sanborn moved 



Note.— Nathaniel Sanborn, the husband of Mrs. Sanborn, died in 1814. There is 
scarcely a pioneer settler in the Genesee country, that did not know the early landlord 
and landlady. Mrs. S. was the daughter of Janics Gould, of Lyme Conn., is the aunt 
of James Gould of Albany. Her son John and William reside in lUmois. Her eldest 
daughter —the first born in Canandaigua,— now over 60 years of age, is the wife of 
Dr. Jacobs ot Canandaigua; another daughter is the wife of Henry Fellows Esq. of 
Peniield ; another, is Mrs. Erastus Granger of Buffalo ; and a fourth is a maiden 
daughter, residing with her mother. 

_ *Mrs. S. gives a graphic account of this journey. The last house the party ' slept 
in after leavmg Schenectady until they arrived at the cabin on the Canandaigua out- 
let;, was the then one log house in Utica. It was crowded with boatmen from Niag- 
ara. Mrs. S. spread her bed upon the floor for herself, husband and children, and the 
weaned boatmen begged the privilege of laying their lieads upon its borders. The 
floor was covered. After that they camped wherever night overtook them. On the 
Oswego River they took possession of a deserted camp, and just as they had got their 
Bupper prepared two stout Indians came who claimed the camp and tlu-eateued a sum- 



166 PHELPS Am) goeham's ptjechase. 

into the log hut that he had built in the Robinson neighborhood, where 
they staid but a short time, the place looking " forbidding and lone- 
some." Mrs. S. chose to go where she could have more than one 
neighbor within eight miles. They removed to Canandaigua* 
Mrs. S. says she found there in May, 1790, Joseph Smith, Uvir^ 
on banii of Lake, Daniel Brainard in a httle log house near the pres- 
ent cemetry, Capt. Martin Dudley, in the house built by Mr. Walk- 
er, James D. Fish in a log house down near the Lake ; Gen. Chapin 
who had been on the fall before had built a small framed house for 
his family, a few rods below Bemis' Bookstore. Mr. Sanborn 
moved into it until a small framed house was erected on the Atwater 
corner, of which he became the occupant, opening a tavern, which 
with the exception of what Joseph Smith had done in the way of 
entertainment, was the first tavern west of Seneca Lake, and 
was the only one for four years. It was the home of the young 
men who came to Canandaigua for settlement ; of adventurers, 
emigrants, who would stop at Canandaigua with their families a few 
days to prepare for pushing here and there into the wilderness ; 
land surveyors and explorers ; Judges of the early courts, and law- 
yers ; the Indian'chiefs Red Jacket, Brant, Farmer's Brother, Corn- 
planter, who were called to Canandaigua often in early years to 
transact business with Gen. Chapin, the Superintendent ; in short 
the primitive tavern that now would be deemed of inadequate 
dimensions for an inn at some four corners in the country, had for 
guests all the prominent men of that early period ; and of many 
eminent in their day, and even now blended with all the early his- 
tory of the Genesee Country. Mrs. Sanborn enumerates among 
her early guests, many of them as boarders: — Oliver Phelps, 
Charles Williamson, Aaron Burr, Thomas Morris, Rev. Mr. Kirk- 
.land, Augustus and Peter B. Porter, James and William Wadsworth, 
the early Judges of the Supreme court of this State, Bishop Chase, 
Joseph and Benj. Ellicott, Philip Church, Louis Le Couteleux, 
Charles and Dugald Cameron, Vincent Matthews, Nathaniel W. 
Howell, John Greig, Horatio and John H. Jones, Robert Troup, 
Jeremiah Mason, Philetus and John Swift, Wm Howe Cuyler, 
Elias Cost, Herman Bogert, Samuel Haight, Timothy Hosmer, 

mary ejectment. The conflicting claim was amicably adjdusted, but Mrs. S. says it 
was the first of the race she had ever seen, and they cost her a little fright. The party 
eaw none but Indians and boatmen in all of the long journey west of Utica. 



PHELPS AKD GOPJIAJVl's PUECHASE. 167 

Arnold Potter, Benedict Robinson, Jemima Wilkinson, Samuel B. 
Ogden, John Butler, Samuel Street, and Timothy Pickering. Few 
of" all of them are now living, and yet the busy stirring landlady, of 
whom they were guests, most of them in their early years, lives to 
remember them and speak familiarly of their advents to this 
region. 

Mrs. Sanborn well remembers the Pickering treaty of '94. As 
it was known that Col. Pickering, the agent, would come prepared 
to give them a grand feast, and distribute among them a large 
amount of money and clothing, the attendance Vv'as very general. 
For weeks before the treaty, they were arriving in squads from all 
of their villages and constructing their camps in the woods, upon' 
the Lake shore, and around the court house square. The little 
village of whites, was invested, over run with the wild natives. 
It seemed as if they had deserted all their villages and transferred 
even their old men, women, and children, to the feast, the carousal, 
and the place of gifts. The night scenes were wild and picturesque ; 
their camp fires lighting up the forest, and their whoops and yells 
creating a sensation of novelty, not unmingled with fear, with the 
far inferior in numbers who composed the citizens of the pioneer 
village, and the sojourners of their own race. At first, all was peace 
and quiet, and the treaty was in progress, beeves had been slaughter- 
ed sufficient to supply them all with meat, and liquor had been care- 
fully excluded ; but an avaricious liquor dealer, secretly dealt out 
to them the means of intoxication, and the council was interrupted, 
and many of the Indians became troublesome and riotous. Gen. 
Chapin however suppressed the liquor shop, harmony was restored, 
and the treaty concluded and the gifts dispensed. A general ca- 
rousal followed, but no outrages were committed. They lingered 
for weeks after the council, displaying their new broadcloths and 
blankets, silver bands and broaches.* 

Samuel Gardner was the first merchant in Canandaigua ; he 
married a sister of Wm Antis ; his store \va? in a I02; building. 
Thaddeus Chapin was the next. 



* Judge Porter was then in Canauclaigua acting as tlie agent of Phelps and Gorliam, 
ir. the name of his principals, he had to make them presents of provisions and whiskey 
when they came to Canandaigua, and that was pretty often. On the occasion aUudeli 
to he denied an Indian wliiskey, telling him it was all gone. "No, no," replied the 
Indian, " Genesee FaUs never dry." This was a shrewd allusion to the gift to Phelps 
and Gorham of the enormous "Mill Lot," which embraced the Genesee Falls. 



168 PHELPS AND 

During the summer of 1790, Caleb Walker, the brother of the 
agent, who had been down and made a beginning in Perinton, died. 
It was the first death and funeral in Canandaigua. The nearest 
physician was a Dr. Adams of Geneva, who came but was destitute 
of medicine ; some was obtained by breaking open a chest that had 
been left by a traveller. At the funeral, the physician being an 
Episcopalian, the church service was read, which was the first relig- 
ious exercises after settlement han commenced, in the Genesee Coun- 
try. In the same year religious meetings were organized, using Judge 
Phelp's barn for the meetings. Sermons were read by John Call ; 
Mr. Sanborn led the singing ; — prayers were omitted, there being 
no one to make them. After the sermon of Rev. Mr. Smith,* who 
is mentioned in connection with the Pitts family, the next was 
preached by the Rev. Mr. Guernsey. 

■ In all early years at Canandaigua, the forest afforded a plenty of 
vension, and the Lake and small streams a plenty of fish. The 
hills on either side of the Lake, abounded in deer, which were easi- 
ly driven into the Lake and caught. Some hunters would kill 
from eighty to an hundred in a season ; and the Indians, when they 
visited the place, would generally have vension to barter for flour 
or bread. Wild fruits — whortleberries, blackberries, wild plums, 
crab-app[es, cranberries, strawberries, raspberries — were plenty in 
their seasons, and furnished a pretty good substitute for cultivated 
fruits. The Indian orchard on Canandaigua Lake, at the Old Cas- 
tle near Geneva, at Honeoye and Conesus, afforded a stinted supply 
of poor apples. Apples and peaches in small quantities, began to 
be produced from the young orchards, in '95 and "6. The first dish 
of currants produced in the Genesee country, were served in a tea- 
saucer, by Mrs. Sanborn, in 1794, at a tea-party, and was a thing 
much talked of; it marked an era. 

Ebenezer Allan is well remembered at Canandaigua, as he is in 
all the Pioneer settlements. Mrs. Sanborn speaks of his being her 
guest on his way to Philadelphia, after the Morris treaty, to place 
his two half-blood daughters in school. He had his waiter along, 
and was at that period what the Senecas would have called a 

* On the second visit lo the country, in 1701, Mr. Smith called together such as 
■were membei-s of churches iu all the Genesee Country organized a church and admin- 
istered the sacrament. Tlie lirst church oiganization and tlie fu-st celebration of the 
Lord's supper, in the Genesee Gouutiy. The chxirch organization was however, not 
a permanent one. 



PIIELPS AND GOEUAm's PUECHASE. 169 

" Shin-ne-wa-na," ( a gentleman ; ) but stories of his barbarity in 
the Border Wars, were then so rife, that he was treated with 
but Httle respect. Sally, the Seneca mother, with all a mother's 
fondness, came as far as Canandaigua to bid her daughters good 
bye. 

In July, 1790, the heads of families in T. 10, R. 3, (Canandai- 
gua ) were as follows : — Nathaniel Gorham, jr., Nathaniel Sanborn; 
John Fellows, James D. Fish, Joseph Smith, Israel Chapin, John 
Clark, Martin Dudley, Phineas Bates, Caleb Walker, Judah Colt, 
Abner Barlow, Daniel Brainard, Seth Holcomb, James Brockle- 
bank, Lemuel Castle, Benjamin Wells, John Freeman. Before the 
close of 1790, there was a considerable accession to the popula- 
tion. 

The first town meeting of the town of Canandaigua, was held in 
April, 1791. It was "opened and superintended by Israel Chapin," 
who was chosen Supervisor; and James D. Fish was chosen Town 
Clerk. The other town officers were as follows : — John Call, Enos 
Boughton, Seth Reed, Nathan Comstock, James Austin, Arnold Pot- 
ter, Nathaniel Potter, Israel Chapin, John Codding, James Latta, 
Joshua Whitney, John Swift, Daniel Gates, Gamaliel Wilder, Isaac 
Hathaway, Phineas Bates, John Codding, Nathaniel Sanborn, Jared 
Boughton, Phineas Bates, Othniel Taylor, Joseph Smith, Benjamin 
W^ells, Hezekiah Boughton, Eber Norton, William Gooding, John 
D. Robinson, Jabez French, Abner Barlow. 

"Voted, That swine, two months old and upwards, going at large, 
shall have good and sufficient yokes." 

" Voted, That for every full-grown wolf killed in the town, a 
bounty of thirty shillings shall be paid." 

The reader, with names and locations that have occurred and 
will occur, will observe that these primitive town officers were 
spread over most of all the eastern pprtion of Phelps and Gorham 's 
Purchase. It was the first occasion to bring the Pioneers together. 
Mutual acquaintances were made ; friendship, good feeling, hiliari- 
ty, athletic games, (says' Mrs. Sanborn.) were the order of the day. 



Note. — When the Senecas, at the Morris treaty, deeded four square miles at Mount 
Moi-ris, to Allan, in trust for ChJoe and Sally Allan, one condition of the trust was, that 
he should have them taught " reading and writing, sewing, and other usefid arts, ac- 
cording to tlie custom of white people." 
11 



170 PHELPS AND goeha:m^s purchase. 

In April, 1792, the town meeting was "opened a^nd inspected by 
Israel Chapin and Moses Atwater, Esqs." Most of the officers 
were re-elected. Eighty pounds were raised to defray the expen- 
ses of the town. In this year, the record of a road was made, 
which ran from " Joseph Kilbourn's house to the shore of the Lake ;" 
and another, from "Swift's ashery to west line of No. 12, R. 2, 
near Webb Harwood's ;" another, " from Swift's to Canandaigua ;" 
and others, leading " from the square in Canandaigua," in different 
directions. 

Town meeting, 1793, it- was voted that fence viewers "examine 
the size and dimensions of hog yokes ;" the wolf bounty was raised 
to $5. Tn this year, twelve scalps were produced ; among the 
namea of those who claimed bounty, were : — Thaxldeus Chapin, 
William Markham, Benjamin Keys, Gamaliel Wilder, Daniel Cha- 
pin, Israel Reed. Roads from " Canandaigua to John Coddings ;" 
" from Nathan Comstock's to Webb Harwood's ;" " from old pre- 
emption line to Canandaigua Mills;" "from Mud Creek Hollow to 
Capt. Peter Pitts' ;" and many others, were surveyed this year. 
The early road surveyors were : — Gideon Pitts, Jairus Rose, 
Jonathan Edwards, Jabez French. 

By the town records of 1794, it would seem that Annanias M. 
Miller had a mill in operation on Mud Creek. Roads were recorded 
this year, " from Canandaigua to Jerusalem ;" " from Jerusalem to 
Gerundegut." This year, Othniel Taylor presented six wolf scalps. 
Gen. Israel Chapin w^as Supervisor till 1795, when he was suc- 
ceeded by Abner Barlow. There is recorded this year, the sale of 
several slaves, the property of the citizens of Canandaigua. 

Although the county of Ontario, embracing all of the Genesee 
country, was set off from Montgomery, during the session of the 
legislature in 1789, '90, no organization of the courts was had until 
1793. In June of that year, a court of Oyer and Terminer was 
held at " Patterson's Tavern in Geneva." The presiding judge 
was John Stop Hobart, one of the three Supreme Court judges ap- 
pointed after the organization of the Judiciary in 1777. A grand 
jury was called and charged, but no indictments preferred. The 
first court of Common Pleas and General Sessions, was held at the 
house of Nathaniel Sanborn in Canandaigua, in November, 1794. 
The presiding judges were, Timothy Hosmer and Charles William- 
son, associated with whom, as assistant justice, was Enos Bough- 



PHELPS AND GOPJIAM's PUECHASE. I7l 

ton. Attornies, Thomas Morris, John Wickham, James Wads- 
worth, Vincent Matthews. There was a number of suits upon the 
calendar, but no jury trial. The organization of the court would 
seem have been the principal business. There was, however, a grand 
jury, and one indictment was found. 

The next session of the court was in June, 1795. James Parker 
vv^as an associate justice. Peter B. Potter and Nathaniel W. Howell, 
being attornies of the Supreme Court, were admitted to practice in 
the courts of Ontario county. Stephen Ross and Thomas Mum- 
ford were also admitted. At this court, the first jury trial was had 
west of the county of Herkimer. It was the trial of the indict- 
ment that had been preferred at the previous session, for stealing a 
cow bell. John ¥/ickham, as County Clerk, was ex-officio District 
iittorney, but the management of the prosecution devolved upon 
Nathaniel W. Howell. Peter B. Porter and Vincent Matthews 
managed the defence. 

In November, 1795, Moses Atwaterwas added to the bench. It 
was ordered that " Nathan Whitney be appointed the guardian of 
Parkhurst Whitney, an infant at the age of eleven years." David 
Saltonstall, Herman Bogert, David Jones, Ambrose Hall, Peter 
Masterton, John Nelson, Major Bostwick, George D. Cooper, H. 
K. Van Rensselaer, were admitted as attornies, [most of them non- 
residents.] 

From Book of "Miscellaneous Records," 1797 : — Peter B. Por- 
ter as county clerk, records the medical diplomas of Daniel Good- 
win, Ralph Wilcox, Jeremiah Atwater, Moses At water, Augustus 
Williams and Joel Prescott. 1799 — Chiefs of Seneca Nation ac- 
knowledged the receipt of 88,000 from Gen. Chapin, as a dividend 
upon the sum of 8100,000, which the United States government had 
received of Robert Morris, as purchase money for the Holland Pur- 
chase and Morris Reserve, *and invested in the stock of the United 
States Bank. The medical diplomas of Drs. John Ray, Samuel 
Dungan, David Fairchild, Arnold Willis, are recorded. Peter B. 
Porter appoints Thomas Cloudesly, deputy clerk. Theophilus Caze- 
nove and Paul Busti appoint Joseph Ellicott and James Wadsworth, 
their lawful attornies. 1800 — Robert Troup as general agent for 
Sir William Pultney, appoints Robert Scott local agent. De Witt 
Clinton executes a mortgage to Oliver Phelps, on an " undivided 
fourth part of 100,000 acres lying west of the Genesee River." 1801, 



172 PHELPS AND GOEHAIm's PUECHASE. 

Peter B. Porter as clerk, makes Augustus Porter his deputy. 1803— 
Benj. Barton and Polydore B. Wisner are made appraisers of dam- 
ages incurred by the construction of the Seneca Turnpike. 1804 — 
Sylvester Tiffany as county clerk appoints Dudley Saltonstall his 
deputy. Thomas Morris appoints John Greig his lawful attorney. 
Harry Hickox files certificate of license to practice medicine. 1806 — 
John Hornby of the county of Middlesex, Kingdom of G. B. ap- 
points John Greig his lawful attorney. T. Spencer Colman is ap- 
pointed deputy clerk. Phineas P. Bates is succeeded as Sheriff 
by James K. Guernsey. 1807 — Oliver Phelps appoints Virtue 
Bronson his lawful attorney. 1808 — Stephen Bates as Sheriff ap- 
points Nathaniel Allen deputy. James B. Mower succeeded Syl- 
vester Tiffany as clerk. 1810 — Myron HoUey is county clerk. 
Canandaigua Library organized. 1811 — James B. Mower as clerk 
appoints Daniel D. Barnard his deputy. 

In all the earliest years, the Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and 
Seneca Indians received their annuities at Canandaigua, which 
made it the place of annual gatherings of those nations, and the 
centre of the Indian trade. 

Although not entitled to it from population, in 1791, by a special 
act, Ontario was entitled to be represented in the Assembly. This 
was not known in the new settlements of Canandaigua, Geneva, 
and their neighborhoods, but in a small settlement that had com- 
menced on the Canisteo in what is now Steuben Co., they were in 
possession of the secret. Col. Eleazor Lindley, under whose auspi- 
cies the settlement was made, collected together a few back woods- 
men, held an election, got a few votes for himself, carried them to 
New York and was admitted a member of the Legislature. The 
whole proceeding was irregular, but there was no one to contest 
the seat, and the Legislature did not wish to deprive the backwoods 
of a representative. General Israel Chapin was its representative 
in 1792. 

In a letter to Sir Wm. Pultney, in 1791, Robert Morris had de- 
clared his intention of settling his son Thomas in the Genesee coun- 
try, as an evidence of his faith in its value and prospects. He 
states that Thomas Avas then reading law with Richard Harrison 
Esq. by whom he was deemed a " worthy young man." In August 
1791, Thomas Morris with some companions, passed through the 
country, visited Niagara Falls, and on his return, made a considera- 



PHELPS AND GORIIAm's PUECHASE. 173 

ble stay at Canandaigua.* He returned and became a resident of 
Canandaigua, marrying a daughter of Elias Kane, of Albany. His 
father having become the purchaser of the pre-emption right of 
what was afterwards the Holland Purchase and Morris' Reserve, 
it was probably intended that he should be the local agent. That 
interest however being parted with, he had much to do with closing 
up his father's affairs in this redon, and in all the preliminary meas- 
ures adopted by the Holland Company, in reference to their pur- 
chase. His father having in his sale to the Holland Company, 
guarantied the extinguishment of the Indian title, he acted in all 
that affair as his agent. He was the first representative in Congress 
from all the region west of Seneca Lake ; and as a lawyer, land 
proprietor, and agent, was intimately blended with all the local 
history of this region. Becoming through his father, an early pro- 
prietor of the Allan tract at Mount Morris, that locahty derives its 
name from him. He was the intimate friend of Mr. Williamson; 
and in fact, enjoyed the confidence and esteem of all the early 
Pioneers. Like others of that early period, he over-traded in lands, 
shared in his father's reverses, and as early as 1803 or '4, retired to 
the city of New York, where he practiced law, until his death, in 
1848. The author knows nothing of his family, save the fact, that Mr. 
Morris an Engineer upon the southern rail road, and Lieut. Morris 
of the Navy are his sons. 



* Major Hoops, who vas then Surveying for the fatlier, Robert Moms, in Steuben, 
■writes to him, Sept. 1791: — "Your son Thomas is an excellent woodsman. He got 
lost about a mile from Canandaigua, night came on ; he made his way through swamps 
and over hills, and at length espied a solitary light at a distance. Entering the hut 
from whence it proceeded, he asked for lodging, but he appeared in such a question- 
able shape that it was denied. Upon being told who he was, the occupant made 
amends lor his incivility by turning half a dozen boys and girls out of their bed into 
his own. Tom turned in, slept till morning among ilees and bed bugs, &c., &c. ; then 
rose and tiTidged on six miles, to Canandaigua, arriving before sun rise." 

And another case of a benighted traveller, of greater note perhaps, but of far less 
real merit, had happened years before settlement commenced : — J ohn Jacob Astor, 
with a pack of Indian goods upon his back, wandered from the Indian trail, got lost 
in the low grounds at the foot of Seneca Lake, in an inclement night, wandered amid 
the howl and the nistlingof wild beasts, until almost morning, when he was attracted 
by the hght of an Indian cabin, near the old castle, and following it, obtained shelter 
and warmth. 

Note. — 'Mi: Monis, in his manuscripts wliich were prepai-ed in 1844, says : — " The 
excursion that has been spoken of was undertaken by me, partly from a desire to 
witness an Indian treaty, and see the Falls of Niagara; and!^ partly with a desire to 
see a country in wliich my father, at that time had so extensive an interest ; and with 
the determination to settle in it if I hked it. I was pleased with it, and made up my 
mind to settle at Canandaigua, as soon as I should have attained the age of 21, and 
my admission to the bar. Accordingly, in the early part of March, 1792, I left New 



174 PHELPS Aim gorham's purchase. 

John Fellows, who is named among the residents in Canandai- 
gua in 1790, was in the Massachusetts line during the Revolution, 
with the rank of Brig. General. He was a resident of Sheffield, 
Mass., was sheriff of Berkshire county, and its representative in 
the State legislature. He was one of the associates of Bacon and 
Adams, in the purchase of East Bloomfield ; drawing his share — 
3,000 acres, — on Mud creek, he erected a saw mil! there in 1790, 
in company with the late Augustus Porter. Besides this tract, he 
had lands in Canandaigua and Honeoye. He never became a per- 
manent resident of the country — got discouraged, or ratlier looked 
upon the dark side of things ; said there was no use of having 
good wheat lands, if they never were to have any market. He re- 
sold the 3,000 acres on Mud creed for 18d. per acre. He died in his 
native town, Sheffield, in 1808. He was the father of Henry Fel- 
lows, Esq. of Penfield, and of Mrs. Daniel Penfield. 

James D. Fish, was ffi-st town clerk ; his wife's death was the 
second one in Canandaigua ; and he died in early years. 

John Clark came with Mr. Phelps to the treaty. His trade be- 
incr that of a tanner and currier, he manufactured the first leather 
in the Genesee country. This was from the hides of the cattle 
driven on to furnish beef for the Indians at the treaty. His vats 
were made by sawing off sections of hollow trees. From this 
small beginning, his business was extended, and in early years his 
shoe and leather establishment was well known throughout a wide 
region. His wife was the daughter of the early pioneer, Lemuel 
Castle. Mr. Clarke died in 1813, and Mrs. Clark in 1842. They 
were the parents of Mrs. Mark H. Sibley of Canandaigua, and 
Mrs. W. H. Adams of Lyons. 

Luther Cole came into the country with Gen. Israel Chapin. 
He was the first to carry the mail from Whitesboro to Canandaigua ; 
on horseback when the roads would allow of it, and often on foot.* 
In winters he would travel with a sleigh, buy goods in Whitesboro 

York for Canandaigua. I was induced to fix on that place for my residence, from the 
character and respectability of the families already established there. lu the course 
of that year I commenced "budding a framed house, filled in with brick, and wliich 
was finished in the early part of the year 1793. That house still subsists, and even in 
that handsome town, where there are so many beautiful buildings, is not considered as 
an eye sore. When it was completed, tliat and the bouse built by Oliver Phelps were 
the only framed houses west of Whitesboro." The house is now OATnedand occupied 
by Judge Wells. 

* See Post Office Canandaigua, Appendix, No. 8. 



PIIELP3 AND GOPJIAJ^l's PUECIUSE. 175 

and sell them in Canandaigua. From this small beginning he be- 
came an early and prominent merchant. His wife was a niece of 
Mrs. Phineas Bates. He died many years since. His sons, Henry 
and James, emigrated to Detroit; James will be remembered as 
an early and highly gifted poet. 

Dr. Hart was another early physician, and died in early years. 
He married the widow of Hezekiah Boughton, a brother of Jared 
and Enos Boughton, and father of Claudius V. and George H. 
Boughton. 

William Antiss emigrated from Pennsylvania, and established 
himself in Canandaigua as a gun smith, at an early period. He 
was employed by Gen. Chapin to make and repair rifles for the In- 
dians, and the white hunters and sportsmen, over a wide region, 
were for a long period, the customers of his establishment. He 
died in early years, and was succeeded by his son William Antiss 
2d, who continued in the business until his death in 1843. The 
sons of Wm. Antiss 2d, are William Antiss of Canandaigua, Robert 
Antiss, who is the successor of his father and grand-father in busi- 
ness. Mrs. Byron Hays and Mrs. Wm. Reed of Canandaigua, are 
daughters of Wm. Antiss 2d. 

In his rambles in June, 1795, the Duke, Liancourt, went from 
Bath to Canandaigua. He staid all night at " Capt. Metcalf 's," and 
mentions the fact that a few years before the Capt. had bought his 
land for Is. per acre, and sold a part of it for $3 per acre. He 
says the settlement was " called Watkinstown, from several families 
of that name who possess the greatest property here." * " Capt. 
Metcalf besides his lands and Inn, possesses a sawmill, where 4500 
feet of boards are cut daily. These boards he sends on the lake to 
Canandaigua, where they are sold for 10s. per 100 feet." " There 
is a school master at Watkinstown, with a salary of twelve dollars 
per month." Speaking of Canandaigua he says : — " The houses, 
although built of wood, are much better than any of that descrip- 
tion I have hitherto seen. They consist mostly of joiner's work, 
and are prettily painted. In front of some of them are small courts, 
surrounded with neat railings. There are two Inns in the town, 
and several shops, where commodities are sold, and shoes and other 



The Duke was iu Naples. Phelps and Gorhara aoM the township to '• Watkins 



Harriss & Co." 



176 piiELrs AXD goeham's pueciiase. 

articles ir.ade. The price of land here is three dollars per acre 
■without the town, and fifteen dollars within. Speaking of a visit to 
" Mr. Chipping," * (Chapin) he says he found him surrounded by a 
dozen Seneca Indians, (among whom was Red Jacket.) who had 
come to partake of his whiskey and meat." The Duke was evi- 
dently in bad humor at Canandaigua. His friend Blacons had 
selected the "second Inn, which was far inferior to the first," and 
he says their dissatisfaction was greatly increased, when they w'ere 
" shewn into a corn loft to sleep, being four of us, in company with 
ten or twelve other men," and after he had got to sleep, he says he 
was disturbed by a recruit of lodgers, an old man and a handsome 
young woman, who I believe was his daughter." At the idea of a 
young woman occupying the same room, w'ith twelve or fifteen of 
the other sex, bethinks his European readers "will scofl", or laugh," 
but he thinks it showed in " an advantageous light, the laudable 
simplicity and innocence of American manners." 

Phineas Bates w'as a native of Durham, Conn. He came to the 
Genesee country in early summer in 1789, with the early Pioneer, 
Gamaliel Wilder, and remained with him until the fall of the year, 
making the commencement at Wilder's Point, in Bristol. He re- 
turned to Connecticut in the fall, making the journey on foot. 
Early in the spring of 1790, accompanied by his eldest son, 
Stephen, his son-in-law, Orange Brace, and several others, he return- 
ed, starting with a yoke of oxen and sled, the party bringing with 
them a year's provision, and some household goods. Arriving at 
Schenectady, they put every thing they could not conveniently 
carry in their knapsacks, on board of a batteaux, left their sled, un- 
yoked their oxen, travelled up the Mohawk, and struck off into 
the wilderness, preceding the Wadsworths a few weeks. At Onon- 
daga, Mr. Bates bought half a bushel of potatoes, slung them across 
the neck of one of his oxen, brought them to Canandaigua, and 
planted them upon some village lots he purchased. During the 
summer, he cleared ten acres, and sowed it to wheat. 

Returning to Connecticut late in the fall, in company with Amos 

Hall, Sweet, Samuel Knapp ; soon after the party left, they 

encountered a severe snow storm, the snow falling to such a depth 



* The translator of the Duke's "Trayels," made bad work y^ixh names. William 
Wadsworth lor instance, is called Capt. Watworth." 



PHELPS AND GOEHAJi's PURCHASE. 17T 

as to render their progress extremely slow. Walking in single file, 
one would go forward to break the path, until he wearied out, when 
another would take his place. Anticipating no such delay, they 
had provided themselves with an inadequate stock of provisions, 
and long before they reached Whitestown, the suffering of hunger 
was added to that of cold and fatigue. The carcass of an otter, 
their dog killed in the Nine Mile Creek, was a substitute for more 
palatable food. 

Undismayed by the scene of suffering and privatibn he had passed 
through, Mr. Bates on reaching home, made preparations for the 
removal of his family, and in February, 1791, brought them by 
sleighing to Canandaigua, making the seventh in the new settle- 
ment. 

He opened a public house at an early day, near the upper end of 
Main-street, which was continued by him and his son for many 
years. He was an early Justice of the Peace, and in all respects, 
a worthy citizen. He died in 1829, at an advanced age. Bring- 
ing with him into the country at so early a period, active and en- 
terprising sons, the family occupied a prominent position for a long 
series of yeai's. His eldest son, Stephen, marrying the daughter 
of Deacon Handy of W. Bloomfield, became a successful farmer 
in Gorham, was sheriff of Ontario, a member of Assembly, and a 
Senator. In 1845, he emigrated to Sauk, Wisconsin, where he 
died the year following ; and of a large family of children, but few 
survive. Asher Bates married the daughter of Ehsha Steel, of 
East Bloomfield; in 1808, moved west of the Genesee river, and 
opened a public house on the main road between Caledonia and Le 
Roy; was one of the earhest sheriffs of Genesee; died in 1810. 
An only son studied law with Spencer and Sibley in Canandaigua, 
settled in Detroit, and is now a resident, at Honolulu, one of the 
Sandwich Islands, acting in the capacity of the King's attorney or 
counsellor. His first wife was the daughter of Thomas Beals of 
Canandaigua ; the second, is a sister of Dr. Judd, the physician of 
the missionaries in the Sandwich Islands. The widow of Asher 
Bates is now the wife of Dr. Wm. Sheldon of Le Roy, Phineas 
P. Bates succeeded his father as a landlord in Canandaigua, and 
was for many years a deputy sheriff and sheriff of Ontario. He 
is the only one of a large family that survives : is the occupant 
of a fine farm adjoining the village of Canandaigua. David C. 



178 PHELPS AND GOEHAll's PUECHASE. 

Bates was a farmer near Canandaigua; died in 1849. A daughter 
of the elder Phineas Bates became the wife of John A. Stevens, 
the early Printer, and Editor of the Ontario Messenger. An elder 
daughter was the wife of Orange Brace, who has been named in 
connection with the early advent of the family ; in 1806, he be- 
came one of the earliest settlers upon the purchase of Phelps and 
Chipman, in Sheldon, Wyoming county. * 

Phineas P. Bates, Esq., the survivor of the family, who has been 
named, in 1800, was the mail boy from Canandaigua to Fort Nia- 
gara. The mail route had been established about two years pre- 
vious, and was carried through by Jasper Marvin, who sometimes 
dispensed with mail bags, and carried the contents in a pocket 
book. ]Mr. Bates observes that when he commenced carrying it 
for his brother Stephen, who was the mail contractor, it used to 
take six days to go and return. His stopping places over night, 
were at Mrs. Berry's, among the Indians at Tonawanda, and at 
Fort Niagara. 

In some reminiscences of Mr. Bates, he observes, that "in 1793, 
one of those fatal accidents occurred at Canandaigua, which always 
cast a gloom over small communities. A Mr. Miles, from what is 
now Lima, and a citizen of Canada, were on their way to Massa- 
chusetts. Riding into the village, when they were within a few 
rods of Main-street, a tree turned out by the roots, fell upon the 
travellers, killing them both, and one of their horses. What made 
the affair a very singular one, \vas the fact, that although it was 
raining moderately at the time, there w^as not the least wind to 
cause the fall of the tree." 

Dr. Moses Atvvater settled in Canandaigua as a physician, at the 
early period of 1791. In some correspondence that passed be- 
tween Gen. Chapin and Judge Phelps, there was much gratifica- 
tion manifested that their new settlement was to have the benefit 
of a physician. Dr. Atwater enjoyed for a long period an extensive 
practice, and made himself eminently useful in the new country. 

* The Pioneer and a son, both died on the frontier, where they had gone under 
Smyth's proclamation, in the war of 1812. Another son and a daughter died about 
the same period. Toward the close of the war, a son-in-law, Ardin Merrill, was kill- 
ed on board of a feny boat, at the Canada landing, o]iposite Black Rock. Many 
households of all the Genesee country were thinned by disease, and deaths upon bat- 
tle gi-ounds, during the war ; but there were few, if any, hearthstones made as desolate 
as was theirs. Leicester Brace of Buffalo, late sheriff of Erie county, is a surviving 
tfon of Orange Brace, and a siuTiving sen and daughter reside in Illinois. 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHAll's PUECHASE. 179 

He was an early Judge of Ontario county. He died in 1848, at 
the advanced age of 82 years. Samuel Atwater of Canandaigua, 
and Moses Atwater of Buffalo, are his sons ; a daughter became 
the wife of Robert Pomeroy, of Buffalo ; and another, the wife of 
Lewis Jenkins, formerly a merchant of Canandaigua, now a resi- 
dent of Buffalo. Dr. Jeremiah Atwater, a brother of Moses, set- 
tled in Canandaigua in early years. He still survives at the age 
of 80 years, laboring, however, under the infirmity of a loss of 
sight. 

Mr. Samuel Dungan was a native of Pennsylvania, a student 
with the celebrated Dr. Wistar. He settled in practice in Canan- 
daigua in 1797. He possessed extraordinary skill as a surgeon, and 
in that capacity, was known throughout a wide region. He died 
nearly thirty years since. He left a son and a daughter, both of 
whom are still living. 

Dr. William A. Williams was from Wallingford, Conn. He en- 
tered Yale College at the close of the Revolution, and graduated at 
the early age of sixteen. After passing through a regular course 
of medical studies, he commenced practice in Hatfield, Mass.; but 
m a few years, in 1793, emigrated to Canandaigua, estabhshed him- 
self in a large and successful practice, which he retained until near 
the close of a long life. One who was his neighbor for near forty 
years, observes : — " He was a man of plain and simple manners, 
amiable and kind hearted ; at the bed side of his patients, he min- 
gled the consolations of friendship with professional advice ; in 
day or night time, in sunshine or in storm, whether his patients were 
rich or poor, he was the same indefatigable, faithful physician and 
good neighbor. He died in 1833 or '4. Col. George Williams, of 
Portage, and Charles Williams, of Nunda, are his sons. His 
daughters became the wives of the late Jared Wilson, Esq., and 

John A. Granger, of Canandaigua, and ■ Whitney, the present 

P. M. at Canandaigua, and Editor of the Ontario Repository. 



ifATHANIEL W. HOWELL. 



The venerable Nathaniel W. Howell, now in his 81st year, is the 
oldest resident member of the Bar of Western New York. His 
native place is Blooming Grove, Orange County, N. Y. The son 



180 PHELPS AND GORHAM's PUECHASE. 

of a farmer, at a period when farmer's sons were early inured to 
toil, a naturally robust and vigorous constitution was aided by the 
healthy labors of the field. At the age of thirteen he was placed in 
an Academy in Goshen, founded by Noah Webstei', the widely 
known author ; where he remained for nearly two years ; after 
which he entered the Academy at Hackensack, N. J., the Principal 
of which was Dr. Peter Wilson, formerly Professor of languages in 
Columbia College. In May, 1787, he entered the junior class in 
Princeton College, and graduated, in Sept. 1788. A few months 
after graduating, making choice of the legal profession, he com- 
menced the study of law in the office of the late Gen. Wilkin, in 
Goshen. Remaining there but a short period, he accepted a call to 
take charge of an Academy at Ward's Bridge in Ulster Co., where 
he continued for over three years ; after which, he resumed the 
study of law in the office of the late Judge Hoffman, in the city of 
New York. He was admitted an Attorney of the Supreme Court 
in May, 1794. 

In May, 1795, he opened an office in the town of Union, near 
the now village of Binghampton, in Tioga county. The late Gen. 
Matthews was then practicing law in Newtown, now Elmira. The 
two were the only Supreme court lawyers then in the county. 

Judge Howell was admitted as an Attorney of the court of com- 
mon pleas in Ontario in June, 1795, and in the following February, 
removed to Canandaigua, where he has continued to reside until 
the present time. The records of the coiu'ts bear evidence of his 
having acquired a large practice in early years. He was one of tlie 
local legal advisers of Mr. Williamson, and was employed by 
Joseph Ellicott in his earliest movements upon the Holland Purchase. 
Laying before the author at this present writing, are copies of his 
letters to Mr. WilUamson written in 1795, and a letter written with- 
in the present year, in a fair hand, but little marked by the tremor 
of age. Fifty six-years have intervened ! 

In 1799, he was appointed by the council of appointment, on the 
nomination of Gov. Jay, assistant Attorney General for the five 
western counties of this state, the duties of which office he contin- 
ued to discharge until his resignation in 1802. In 1819 he was 
appointed by the council of appointment, on the nomination of Gov 
Dewitt Clinton, First Judge of the county of Ontario, which office 
he filled for thirteen years. He was an early representative in the 



PHELPS AND GORHAMS PURCHASE. 181 

State legislature, and in 1813, '14, he represented in Congress, the 
double district, composed of Ontario and the five counties to the 
west of it. On retiring from the Bench, he retired from his profes- 
sion, employing himself in the superintendence of a farm and gar- 
den, enjoying good health, with slight exceptions ; in summers labor- 
ing more or less with his own hands. 

In a previous work, the author has observed, that there are few 
instances of so extended a period of active participation in the 
affairs of life ; and still fewer instances of a life that has so adorned 
the profession to which he belongs, and been so eminently useful 
and exemplary. To him, and to such as him — his early cotem- 
porary. General Matthews, for instance — -and others of his cotem- 
poraries that could be named, is the highly honorable profession of 
law in Western New York indebted for early and long continued 
examples of those high aims, dignity, and exalted integrity, which 
should be its abiding characteristics. They have passed, and are 
passing away. If days of degeneracy should come upon the profes- 
sion — renovation become necessary — there are no better prece- 
dents and examples to consult, than the lives and practices of the 
Pioneer Lawyers. 

The first wife of Judge Howell was the youngest daughter of 
General Israel Chapin. She died in 1808, leaving two sons and a 
daughter. He married for a second wife, in 1809, the daughter of 
Dr. Coleman, of Anchram, Mass. She died in 1842, leaving three 
sons and a daughter. The surviving sons are: — Alexander H. 
Howell, Thomas M. Howell, Nathaniel W. Howell, Augustus P. 
Howell. Daughters became the wives of Amasa Jackson of the 
city of New York, and Henry S. Mulligan of Buffalo. 

Dudley Saltonstall was a native of New London, Conn., a grad- 
uate of Yale College. He studied law in the celebrated law school 
of Judge Reeves of Litchfield, and was admitted to practice in the 
court of common pleas of Ontario, in 1795. He had genius, and 
high attainments in scholarship, commenced practice under favorable 
auspices ; but aiming high and falling below his aim, in his first 
forensic efforts, he lost confidence in himself, and abandoned the 
profession. He engaged in other pursuits with but little better 
success, and in 1808, emigrated to Maryland, and soon after to 
Elizabeth city, N. Carolina, where he died some fi.fteen years since. 

Dudley Marvin did not locate at Canandaigua within a pioneer 



182 PIEELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

period, but his name is so blended with the locality, that a brief no- 
tice of him will perhaps be anticipated. He was a native of 
Lyme, Connecticut. His law studies were commenced and com- 
pleted in the office of Messrs. Howell & Greig ; in the absence of 
any classical education, but in its place was a vigorous intellect^ 
peculiarly adapted to the profession he embraced. He had not 
been long admitted to the bar, when he had no superior, and few 
if any equals, as an advocate, in the western counties of this State ; 
indeed, the giants of the law from the east, who used to follow the 
^circuits of the old Supreme Court Judges in this direction, found in 
the young advocate of the west, a competitor who plucked laurels 
from their brows they had won upon other theatres of foren-sic strife. 
" When sitting as a judge," says one of his early legal mentors, " I 
freque-ntly listened with admiration to his exceedingly able and elo- 
quent summings up in jury trials. I was once present on the trial 
of an important and highly interesting cause, in which Mr. Marvin 
and the celebrated Ehsha Williams were opposed to each other, 
and I thought the speech to the jury of Marvin, was quite as 
eloquent as that of Williams, and decidedly more able. He was, in- 
deed, unsucces-sful, but the failure was owing to his cause, and not 
to him. He might well have said with the Trojan hero: — "Si 
Pergama dextra defendi possent etiam hac dcfensi fuissent." 

He was twice elected to Congress, in which capacity the high 
expectations that were entertained of his career were somewhat dis- 
appointed. The new sphere of action was evidently not his forte — 
neither was it to his liking ; while the free habits that unfortunately 
so much prevailed at our national capitol, were illy suited to help 
the wavering resolutions of a mind that was wrestling with all its 
giant strength, to throw off chains with which a generous social 
nature, had helped to fetter him. Years followed, in which one who 
had filled a large space in the pubhc mind of this region, was almost 
lost sight of; his residence being principally in Maryland and Vir- 
ginia. He returned to this State, and resumed practice in the city 
of New York, where he continued but a few years ; removing to 
the county of Chautauque, and retiring upon a farm. 

Myron HoUey came from Salisbury Connecticut, in 1803, locating 
at Canandaigua. He had studied law, but never engaged in prac- 
tice. He was an early bookseller, and for a considerable time 
clerk of Ontario county. He was a member of the first Board of 



PHELPS ATTD GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 183 

canal commissioners, the acting commissioner in the original con- 
struction of the v.-estern division of the Erie Canal, unil the whole 
was put under contract. Soon after the location of the canal he 
becam.e a resident of the village of Lyons. So eminently able and 
faithful were his services as a canal commissioner, that the grateful 
recollection and acknowledgement of them, outlive and palliate the 
mixed offence of fault and misfortune, with which his ofiicial career 
terminated. 

Mr. Holley died in 1839, or '40; his widow, the daughter of 
John House, an early Pioneer at Canandaigua, resides in Black 
Rock, Erie county. 

Isaac Davis, an early merchant at Canandaigua, and subsequently 
at Buffalo, married another daughter of Mr. House. She resides 
with her two sons in Lockport. Wm. C. House, a surviving son of 
John House, was an early merchant in Lockport, and lately the 
canal collector at that point ; his wife, the daughter of John G. 
Bond, an early merchant in Rochester. 

Thomas Beals became a resident of Canandaigua, engaging in 
the mercantile business, in 1803. In early j^earshis trade extended 
over a wide region of country, in which he was highly esteemed 
as an honest and fair dealing merchant. The successor of Thad- 
deus Chapin as treasurer of Ontai'io county, in 1814, he continued 
to hold the office for twenty eight years. As Trustee and Secretary, 
he has been connected with the Canandaigua Academy forty years. 
He was one of the trustees, and a member of the building com- 
mittee of the Congregational Church in 1812; and was one of the 
county superintendents of the poor, when the Poor House was first 
erected. He is now, in his 66th year, engaged in the active 
pursuits of life ; the Treasurer of the Ontario Savi-ngs Bank, a 
flourishing institution of which he was the founder. Mrs. Beals, 
who was the daughter of the early settled clergyman at Canan- 
daigua, the Rev. Mr. Fields, still survives. There are two survi- 
veing sons, one a resident of New York, and the other in Indiana. 
Surviving daughters are : — Mrs. Alfred Field, and Mrs. Dr. Carr, 
of Canandaigua, and Mrs. James S. Rogers, of Wisconsin. 

In 1798, a formidable party of emigrants arrived and settled near 
Canandaigua. It consisted of the families of Benjamin Barney, 
Richard Daker and Vincent Grant. They were from Orange county; 
and were all family connexions.. With their six or seven teams, 



184 



PHELPS AND GOEHAJI S PURCHASE. 



and a numerous retniue of foot passengers, and stock, their advent 
is well remembered. They practiced one species of travelling 
economy, that the author has never before heard of among the de- 
vices of pioneer times : — the milk of their cows was put into a 
churn, and the motion of the wagon produced their butter as they 
went along.* The journey from Orange county consumed twenty- 
six days. The sons who came with Benj. Barney, were : — Thomas, 
John, Nicholas, Joseph and Henry. Thomas was the head of a 
family when they came to the Genesee country ; a surviving son 
of his, is Gen. V. G. Barney of Newark Wayne county ; a surviv- 
ing daughter is the wife of Elisha Higby, of Hopewell, Ontario 
county ; — and in this connection it may be observed, that Mr. 
Higby erected the first carding machine in the Genesee country, 
in 1804, in what is now the town of Hopewell, to w4iich he soon 
added a cloth dressing estabhshment. 

James Sibley, the early and widely known silver smith, watch 
repairer, and jeweler, of Canandaigua, still survives, retired from 
business, a resident of Rochester. His son, Oscar Sibley, pursuing 
the business of his father, is the proprietor of a large establishment 
in Buffalo. By the aid of a singularly retentive memory — especi- 
ally in reference to names and localities — he has furnished the 
author with the foUov/ing names of all the heads of families in Can- 
andaigua, village, in 1803 : — 



Seth Tliompson, 
Abuer Bunnell, 
Elijah Morley, 
Henry Chapin. 
Samuel Latta, 
Dudley Siiltonstall, 
Leander Butler, 
Luther W. Benjamin, 
John Hall, 
John House, 
Martin Dudley, 
Gen. Wells, 
Jasper Parish, 
Mr. Crane, 
Daniel Danes, 
Mr. Sampson, 
Timothy Younglove, 
Samuel Abbey, 
John Shuler, 
John Brockelbank, 
Jeremiah Atwater, 
General Taylor, 



Widow Whiting, 
Phineas Bates, 
Augustus Porter, 
Zachariah Seymour, 
Nathaniel Sanborn, 
Timothy Burt, 
Thomas Morris, 
Thomas Beals, 
Moses Atwater, 
Thaddeus Chapin, 
Israel Chapin, 
Gould & Post, 
James Dewey, 
Ezekiel Taylor, 
\Vm. Antiss, 
John Clark, 
James Smodlcy, 
Jacob Haskell, 
Rev. Timothy Field, 
Joshua Eaton, 
Samuel Brock, 
Moses Cleveland, 



Sylvester Tiffany, 
Wm. A. Wilhams, 
James Holden, 
Nath. VV. Howell, 
Samuel Dungan, 
Robert Spencer, 
Hannah Whalley, 
Ebeuezer F. Norton, 
John Furguson, 
Abner Barlow, 
Norton ife Richards, 
Nathaniel Gorham. 
William Shepherd, 
Freeman Atwater, 
William Chapman, 
Col. Hyde, 
Virtue Bronson, 
James B. Mower, 
Oliver Phelps, 
Peter H. Colt. 
Luther Cole, 
Amos Beach. 



* But this device found more than its match with an old lady who was fleeing from 
the frontier in the wai- of 1812. An alarm foimd her with her dough mixed for baking, 



185 

The first permanent church organization in Canandaigua, of 
which the author finds any reconl, was that of St. Mathew's 
church of the town of Canandaigua, February 4th, 1799. "A 
meeting was held at the house of Nathaniel Sanborn ; Ezra Piatt 
was called to the chair to regulate said meeting." The following 
officers were chosen : — Ezra Piatt, Joseph Colt, Wardens ; John 
Clark, Augustus Porter, John Hecox, Nathaniel Sanborn, Benjamin 
Wells, James Fields, Moses Atwater, Aaron Flint, Vestrymen. 

The •Rev, Philander Chase, the present Bishop of the United 
States, then in Deacon's orders, presided at this organization ; re- 
mained and officiated as clergyman for several months. 

About the same period, " the first Congregational church of the 
town of Cannandaigua," was organized. " Ail persons who had 
statedly worshipped in said congregation," met " at the school 
house," and chose as Trustees : — Othniel Taylor, Thaddeus Chapin, 
Dudley Saltonstall, Seth Holcomb, Abner Barlow, Phineas Bates. 
The first settled minister of this church, was the Rev- Mr. Field. 

The first record of election returns that the author has been 
enabled to obtain, is that of the election of Senators and Assem- 
blymen in 1799. This was before Ontario was dismembered, or 
rather before Steuben had a separate organization, and the returns 
of course embrace the whole region west of Seneca Lake. Vin- 
cent Matthews, Joseph White, Moss Kent, were the candidates for. 
Senators. The candidates for Assembly were, Charles Williamson 
and Nathaniel Norton, opposed by Lemuel Chipman and Dudley 
Saltonstall. Williamson and Saltonstall were elected. The entire 
vote is given : — 

Bloomfield ... 1G8 Jerusalem ... IQI 

Northfield ... 59 Haitford ... 70 

Charleston - - - 125 I'alrayra ... 55 

Easton .... 58 Geneseo - - - 44 

Augusta .... 58 Sodus .... 46 

Sparta .... 82 Seneca ... 55 

She rolled it up in a bed, and sitting upon it, kept it -warm, pulling it out and baking 
as she stopped along the road. 

Note. — There was a little feehng of rivalry in the organization of these Pioneer 
churches : thence the anecdote of "Bishop Chase's fiddle." The then young clergy- 
man boarded with Mrs. Sanborn, and to amuse one of her children, whittled out a 
shingle in the shape of a fiddle, and stringing it with silk thread, put it in the win- 
dow ; an yEoIian liarp. The trifling affair soon got noised about, and some members 
of the rival church organization converted it to no less offence than that of a minister 
of the gospel making a fiddle. 

12 



186 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

Caiiandaigua - - - 66 Middlesex ... 52 

Bristol - - - - 110 Frederickstown - - 46 

Phelps 104 Painted Post - - 63 



66 


Middlesex 


110 


Frederickstown 


104 


Painted Post 


62 


Dansville 


86 


Canisteo 





Bath - 



Pittstown - - -62 Dansville - - . 54 

Middletown - - - 86 Canisteo - - - 76 

106 



978 



766 

978 



Total 1744 

In 1800, Lemuel Chipman and Nathaniel Norton were dected ; 
number of votes, 3,582. Thomas Morris was elected to Congress, 
receiving almost the entire vote of the Genesee country. Canan- 
(jaigua, Palmyra, Bristol, Sparta, Hartford, Easton, Charleston, 
Northfield, Augusta, their entire vote ; and in several other towns 
there were but one, two and three, against him. 1801 — Peter B. 
Porter and Daniel Chapin were elected to the Assembly. 1802 — 
Steuben elected separately, PoUydore B. Wisner, Augustus Porter 
and Thaddeus Chapin, were elected members of Assembly from 
Ontario. 1803 — Batavia, which was then all of the Holland 
Purchase, gave less than 180 votes. In that year, Amos Hall, 
Nathaniel W. Howell, Pollydore B. Wisner, were elected to the 
Assembly. 1804 — The members of Assembly were, Amos Hall, 
Djiniel W. Lewis and illexander Rhea. 

. Jonathan Philips, an early shoemaker of Canandaigua, still sur- 
vives, hammering and drawing out his waxed ends upon a seat he 
has occupied for 51 years ; being now 75 years of age. The old 
gentleman observes, that in that now healthy locality, he has known 
it to be so sickly, that more than half the entire population would 
be afflicted with fevers. 

Southvvorth Cole, an elder brother of Luther Cole, came into the 
country in 1797. He located on the east side of the Lake, in a 
then wilderness, at what was known in early days as '"Corn Creek." 
There was an old Indian clearing of about 20 acres. Mr. Cole 
was for several years the only settler between the foot of the Lake 
and Naples. The location was famed as the favorite ground of the 
rattle snake : some members of this Pioneer family have killed as 
many as IGO in the course ot a day at their den. Deer were so 
plenty, that a hunter of the family has killed 60 in a season. The 
sons of the Pioneer were Abner Cole, an early lawyer of Palmyra; 
Dorastus Cole, of Palmyra ; Joseph Cole, of Michigan ; G. W. 



PHELPS AlTD GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 187 

Cole, of Saratoga Springs ; and Benjamin B. Cole, of Ogden. 
Mrs. Philetus Swift of Phelps, and Mrs. Kingsley Miller of Palmy- 
ra, were his daughters. Joseph Colt, the early merchant of Geneva 
and Palmyra, married a sister of Southworth and Luther Cole. 



BLOOMFIELD. 



The settlement of East Bloomfield, commenced simultaneously 
with that of Canandaigua. The east township was purchased by 
Capt. Wm. Bacon, Gen. John Fellows, Elisha Lee, Deacon John 
Adams, Dr. Joshua Porter (the father of Peter B. and Augustus,) 
Deacon Adams became the pioneer in settlement : — and the pa- 
triarch it might well be added, for he introduced a large household 
into the wilderness. His family consisted of himself and wife, his 
sons John, Jonathan, William, Abner and Joseph ; his sons in laws, 

Ephraim Rew, Lorin Hull, and Wilcox, and their wives, and 

Elijah Rose, a brother in law and his family, and three unmarried 
daughters. Joined with all these in the primitive advent, were : — 
Moses Gunn, Lot Rew, John Barnes, Roger Sprague, Asa Hickox, 
Benjamiin Goss, John Keyes, Nathaniel Norton. Early after the 
opening of navigation, in 1789, the emigrants departed from Sche- 
nectad)', some of the men with the household furniture and stores, by 
water, but most of the party upon pack horses, following principally 
the Indian trails. In May, they were joined by Augustus Porter, 
Thaddeus Keyes, Joel Steele, Eber Norton and Orange Woodruif. 
Judge Porter, then but twenty years of age, had been employed to 
make farm surveys of the township. When he arrived he found 
the Adams family, and those who had come in with them, the occu- 
pants of a log house, 30 by 40 feet, the first dwelling erected west 
of Canandaigua after white settlement commenced. To accomo- 
date so large a family with lodgings, there were berths upon wooden 
pins along the walls of the house, one above another, steam, or 
packet boat fashion. It was the young surveyor's first introduction 
to backwoods life. He added to the crowded household himself and 
his assistants, and soon shouldered his " Jacob staft'," and commen- 
ced his work. The emigrants had brought on a good stock of pro- 
visions and some cows ; wild game soon began to be added, which 
made them very comfortable livers. The Judge, in his later years, 



188 PHELPS AND GOPJIAM'S PUECIIASE. 

would speak with much animation, of the primitive log house, its 
enormous fire place ; and especially of the bread " baked in ashes'' 
which Mrs. Rose used to bring upon the table, and which he said 
was excellent. 

William Bacon, a principal proprietor in Bloomfield, was a res- 
ident of Sheffield, Mass.; he never emigrated. He bore a captain's 
commsssion in the Revolution, and was a contractor for the army. 
After the Revolution he drove cattle through upon the old Indian 
trail to Fort Niagara. Deacon Adams, Nathaniel Eggleston, and 
several others of the early settlers in Bloomfield, first saw the Gen- 
esee Country, in connection with this cattle trade to Niagara. Col. 
Asher Saxton a prominent pioneer, in Bloomfield, Cambria, and 
Lockport Niagara co., and lastly upon the river Raisin, near 
Monroe, w"as a son in law of capt. Bacon and his local representa- 
tive. He died at his residence in Michigan in 1847 at an advanced 
age. He married for a third wife a sister of Gen. Micah Brooks. 
When he left Bloomfield to go into a new region in Niagara county, 
he remarked to an old friend that he was going " where they live in 
log cabins." " I want" said he " to see more of Pioneer life." The 
roof of a log cabin has seldom sheltered a worthier man. 

The author is unable to name the year in which all of the emi- 
grants settled in Bloomfield after the primitive advent of the Adam's 
household, and those who came in the same year. Those who will 
be named were of the earliest class of Pioneers. 

Dr. Daniel Chapin was the early physician. He was the next 
representative of Ontario county in the Legislature after Gen. 
Israel Chapin. He removed to Buffalo in 1805 and died there in 
1835. 

Amos Bronson was from Berkshire, a persevering and enterprising 
man, and became the owner of a large farm. He died in 1835. 
His wife still survives, at the advanced age of over 90 years. Mrs. 
Bronson, and Benjamin Goss, are the only two surviving residents 



Note. — There are no surviving descendants in the first degree of the early Pioneer 
Deacon Joha Adams. In the second, third and fonrth degree, few families are more 
numerous. The tlirce unmamed daughters mentioned above, became the wives of 

John Keyes, Benjamin, and Silas Eggleston. Among the descendants are the 

family who gave the name to "Adams Basin," in Ogden ; Gen, Wm. H. Adams of 
Lyons, Wm. Adams of Rochester, and Mrs. Barrett of Lockport ; and the author re- 
gi-ets that ho has not the memorandums to enable him to remember more of a name 
and family so prominently identified with Pioneer settlement. 



PHELPS A1!TD GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 189 

of all the adult pioneers of East Bloomfield. The sons are among 
the wealthy and public spirited men of the town. 

Benjamin Goss, who is named above, was in the country as early 
as 1791. He married a daughter of Deacon George Codding, of 
Bristol. Theirs was the first wedding on Phelps and Gorham's Pur- 
chase. He is now 90 years of age ; a Revolutionary pensioner. 
He was in the battle at Johnstown, at Sharon Springs, and was in 
the unsuccessful expedition of Col. Marinus Willett to Oswego in the 
winter of 1781.* 

Nathaniel Norton was from Goshen, Conn. He was the foun- 
der of the mills that took his name, on the Ganargwa creek, in 
Bloomfield. He was an early sheriff of Ontario, and its repi'esen- 
tative in the Legislature ; and an early merchant in Bloomfield and 
Canandaigua. He died in 1809 or '10. The late Heman Norton 
was his son ; a daughter became the wife of Judge Baldwin of the. 

Sup. Court of the United States ; another of Beach, of the 

firm of Norton & Beach. Aaron Norton, the brother of Nathaniel, 
settled in Bloomfield about the same time; died soon after 1815. 
Hon. Ebenezer F. Norton of Buffalo, and Reuben Norton of Bloom- 
field, are his sons. A daughter became the wife of Kibbe, 

the early Bank cashier at Canandaigua and Buffalo ; another, the 
wife of Peter Bowen. Eber Norton, another brother of Nathaniel, 
died in 1810; Judge Norton of Allegany is a son of his. 

Roger, Azel, and Thomas Sprague, with their father and mother, 
and three sisters, were early pioneers. Roger succeeded Nathaniel 
Norton as Sheriff of Ontario, was a member of the Legislature, and 
supervisor- He died in Michigan, in 1848. Asahel and Thomas, 
both died soon after 1810. The only survivor of the family is a 
sister who became the wife of Dr. Ralph W ilcox. 



* The old gentleman gives a relation of suffering and privation in that expedition, 
■which exliibits some of the harshest features of the war of the Revolution. The con- 
templated attack upon Os'wego, was undertaken in mid winter, and the army encoun- 
tered deep snow. Many of the men had their feet frozen, and the relator among the 
number. The expedition was undertaken in sleighs, and upon snow shoes, the men 
going ahead upon the snow shoes, and partly beating the track. Oneida Lake was 
crossed upon the ice. Arriving at Fort Brewerton, a large number of the pressed mil- 
itia, appalled by the suffering and danger they were to encounter, deserted and return- 
ed to the valley of the Mohawk ; the remainder, an unequal force for the work that 
was before them, struck off into the dark forest in the direction of Oswego, were badly 
piloted, missed thek course, and were three days wanderers amid the deep snows of 
the wilderness. Coming within four miles of a strong fortress, Avith provisions exhaus- 
ted, ammunition much damaged, and men already worn out in the march, a council de- 
cided against the attack, and the expedition retreated to Fort Plain. 



./\ 



190 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

Moses Gunn was from Berkshire. He died in 1820 ; Linus Gunn 
of Bioomfield was a son of his ; another son was an early tavern 
keeper on north road to Canandaigua. 

As early as 1790 Daniel Gates located in the town of Bioomfield, 
on the Honeoye creek, at what is now known as North Bioomfield, 
and erected the first saw mill upon that stream. Procuring some 
apple sprouts from the old Indian orchard at Geneva he had one of 
the earliest bearing orchards in the Genesee country. His youngest 
son, Alfred Gates, now resides upon the old homestead. 

Dr. John Barnes was an early physician, remained a few years, 
and emigrated to Canada. 

Elijah Hamlin, Philo Hamlin, Cyprian Collins, Gideon King, Ben- 
jamin Chapman, Joel and Christopher Parks, Ephraim and Lot Rue, 
Alexander Emmons, Ashbel Beach, Nathan Waldron, Enos Hawley, 
Timothy Buel, were Pioneers in Bioomfield, but in reference to them, 
the author as in many other instances, has to regret the absence of 
datas to enable him to speak of them beyond the mention of their 
names. Elijah Hamlin, who was alive a short time since, in Mich- 
igan, if alive now, is the only survivor of them. He was a contrac- 
tor on the Erie Canal, at Lockport, in 1822. Joel Parks, a son of 
one of those named, married a daughter of Dea. Gooding of Bristol. 
He was a pioneer at Lockport, Niagara county, a Justice of the 
peace and merchant ; and is now a resident of Lockport Illinois. 

Moses Sperry moved from Berkshire to Bioomfield, in March, 
1794, with his wife and seven children. He was then but 27 years 
old. Remaining in Bioomfield until 1813, he removed with his 
family to the town of Henrietta, when settlement had but first com- 
menced, and where he had been preceded two or three years by 
some of his sons. He died in the town of Gates, in 1826, aged 62 
years. At the time of his death he had living, 12 children, 67 
grand-children, and 7 great-grand children ; nine of the sons and 

Note. — Amos Otis Esq. of Peny, Wyoming county, -who has furnished the author 
■with some interesting reminiscences of the early settlement of liis present locahty, a 
nephew of the above named DanielGates, resided with liim as early as 1804. He was 
informed by his uncle that he ploughed up many relics in the earliest years of settle- 
ment; among which was a sword blade about two feet long, and a brass kettle. The 
old gentleman also informed him the Indians were very troublesome previous to the 
Pickering treaty ; so much so that they would enter the log cabins of the new settlers, 
insolently demanding whatever they wanted to eat or drink. Mr. Otis mentions an 
additional fact that tlie author has learned from no otlier source, that in the heiifht of 
Indian alarm, the new settlers erected a block house, upon the JSall farm, in the north 
part of the town of Lima. 



>^V 



PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 191 

daughters are now living. Tiie mother died in Randolph, Cattara- 
gus county, in 1840, aged 78 years ; tlie eldest son at Council BlufF, 
on his way to Oregon, in 1846. The history of this family furnishes 
a remarkable instance of the spirit of enterprise and adventure in- 
herited by the descendants of the early pioneers of the Genesee 
country. Residing in one town, in 1813, in 1842 the sons and 
dauo-hters were residents of five different States. Nine of them 
are now living : James Sperry, in Henrietta, a well known surveyor, 
and a local agent of the Wadsworth estate ; Moses Sperry, the 
present Surrogate of Monroe ; Calvin Sperry, in Gates, Monroe 
county; Charles Sperry in Quincy, Illinois; George Sperry in 
Trumbull county Ohio. A sister resides in Cattaragus county; 
another in Akron, Ohio ; another in Missouri ; another in Gates, 
Monroe county. 

]\ir James Sperry having kindly furnished the author with some 
interesting pioneer reminiscences, they are inserted in the form 
adooted in other instances. 



REMINISCENCES OF JAMES SPERRY. 



Among the trials of the fii'st settlei's, there were none more irritating than 
the destruction of slieep and swine by the wolves and bears. Often whole 
flocks of sheep would be slauglitered in the night by the wolves. This hap- 
pened so frequently that those who determined to presene their sheep, made 
pens or yards, so high and tight that a wolf could not get over or through 
them. If left out by accident or carelessness, they were almost sure to be at- 
tacked. The state, county and town, ofiered bounties, in the aggTegate, 
amounting to $20 for each wolf scalp. Asahel Sprague caught ten in Bloom- 
field, which had the effect to pretty nuich stop their ravages in that quarter. 

Bears preyed lif^n the hogs, that from necessity the new settlers were 
C'b.iged to let run in the woods for shack. About two years after we 
came to Bloomfield, when our neai'cst neighbor was a mile from my father's 
house, one dark evening in Octobei-, when we Vi'cre all sitting around the 
table pearing pumpkins to dry, (and to make o/jj-j/c sauce,) we Avere suddenly 
started by a loud squeal from the n:iother of the grunters, who with her pro- 
geny, were resting in a hollow log in the woods. My father having no am- 
munition for his old French gun, seized an axe, and -went to the rescue, un- 
hindered by the remonstrances of my mother. The bear fled at his approach, 
but had so injured the hog that my father killeil her and dragged in the carcass. 

It was not uncommon for boys to see bears when after the cows, but I 
think no one of the early settlers received any injury from them, unle&s they 
had first been wounded. One of the Coddings, in Bloomfield, came pretty 



192 PHELPS AND GOEIIAM's PURCHASE. 

near having a clinch with one, vfhile in the woods, sphtting rails. Stooping 
down to pick up liis axe to cut a sliver, he turned around antl found himself 
confronted by a bear standing upon its hind legs, with fore paws extended, to 
give him a hug. He declined the offei', struck the bear in the head with the 
axe, but making a glancing stroke, failed to penetrate the skull. The bear 
fled, bearing off the axe, which -R'as held by the wounded skin and flesh. 

Asahel Sprague shot one effectually in the night, while he had hold of one 
of his hogs in the fattening pen. James Parker drove one out of his corn field 
in the day time, followed close upon his heels, and broke his back with a 
hand-spike as he was getting over the fence. The second year of our residence 
in Bloomfield, one day when my father had gone to training, a bear came 
within six or eight rods of the house and caught a hog. My mother and 
eldest sister frightened him from his prey. So much for bear stories, and 
enough perhaps, though I could tell a dozen more of them. 

Among the pleasures of Pioneer life, there was nothing I used to enjoy 
more than to see the flocks of deer bounding over the openings when we 
were out for the cows, or whenever we went a little way from the clearings. 
Many enjoyed the sport of hunting them, and some were successful enough 
to make the sport profitable ; killed enough to supply themselves and their 
neighbors with meat, and themselves with breeches from the dressed skins. 
By the way, I would remark here, that at that early day, the openings about 
Bloomfield were so clear of trees and bushes, that in many places deer would 
be seen from a half to three quarters of a mile oft'. The openings were 
burned over every spring, and every season they would be gi-een with the 
tender " bent grass," which made good feed for the cattle and deer. In a 
few years, however, improvements were so extended that the inhabitants 
ceased firing tlie openings, and soon they began to be covered with oak and 
hickory bushes. I know of two localities where the ground was free from 
trees or bushes fifty years ago, that would produce as many cords of wood 
now per acre, as the heaviest timbered native forests. 

Although the privations of the first settlers were numerous and hard to 
beai", having often to go without meat and sometimes bread ; obliged to go 
on horseback to mill, often fifteen and twenty miles ; to go with poor shoes 
and moccasins in the wintei-, and barefoot in the summer ; yet, notwithstand- 
ing all this, to their praise be it recorded, they showed a considerable zeal in 
the support of schools for their children. When our family arrived in 
March, 1794, there wjis a school in the north east corner of the town, near 
the residence of the Adams and Nortons, kept by Laur a Adams. Four of 
the oldest of our family entered the school as soon as we arrived. Heman 
Norton and Lot Rue, who afterwards " went through college," were mem- 
bers of this school. The next spring, a seven by ten log school house was 
built about one and a half miles south west of the centre, where a school 
was kept by Lovisa Post, who afterwards mai-ried William H. Bush, and 
removed to Batavia. * During the summer of '95 and '6, Betsey Sprague 

* The wife of the author is a daughter of liis. After leaviug Bloomfield iu 1806, 
he built mills at a place which took his name, on the Toiiawanda Creek, three miles 
west of Batavia. He was a rioneer of Bloomtield, and also upon the Holland Pur- 
chase. He carded the first pound of wool hj machinery; dressed the firet piece of 
cloth, and made the first ream of paper west of Caladonia. He still survives, in the 
78th year of his age. 



PIEELPS A]\T> GORHAIvl's PUECHASE. 193 

kept tliis school. There was then but two schools in the town. Miss 
Sprague kept the same school in the winter of '96 and '7. My eldest 
brothel- and myself attended this school in the winter, walking two and a half 
miles through the snow across the openings ; not with "old shoes and clout- 
ed " on our feet, but with rags tied on them to go and come in, taking them 
oft' in school hours. The young men and boys, the young women and girls, 
for three miles around, attended this school. John Fairchild, west of the 
Centre, sent his children. 

In the fall of '97, a young man with a pack on his back, came into the 
neighborhood of Gunn, Goss, King, Lamberton, and the Bronsons, two miles 
east of the south west school, and one mile north of may f;xther's, and intro- 
duced himself as a school teacher fi'om the land of steady habits ; proposino- 
that they form a new district, and he would keep their school. The proposi- 
tion w;is accepted, and all turned out late in the season, the young man volun- 
teei-ing his assistance, and built another log school house in wliich he kept a 
school in the winter of '97 and '8, and the ensuing winter. The school was 
as full both winters as the house could hold. Two young men, John Lam- 
berton and Jesse Tainter, studied surveying both winters, and in 1800, 
Lamberton commenced surveying for the Holland Company, doing a larger 
amount of surveying upon their Purchase than any other man. He now 
lives near Pine Hill, a few miles noi-th of Batavia. The fii'st winter, my 
father sent seven to this school, and the second winter eight. In this school, 
most of us learned for the fii-st time that the earth was round, and turned 
round upon its axis once in 24 hours, and revolves around the sun once a 
year. I shall never forget the teacher's manner of illustrating these fects : — 
For the Avrmt of a globe, betook an old hat, the crown having "gone up to 
seed," doubled in the old limber I rim, marked with chalk a "line round the 
middle for the equator, and another representing the eliptic, and held it up 
to the scholars, with the " seed end " towards them, and turning it, com- 
menced the two revolutions. The simultaneous shout which went up from 
small to great, was a " caution'" to all young school masters how they in- 
troduce " new things" to young Pioneers. Although the school master was 
a feyorite with parents and pupils, the " most orthodox " thought he was 
talking of some thing of which he knew nothing, and was teaching for sound 
doctrine what was contrary to the common sense of all; for every body 
knew that the eailh was flat and immovably fixed, and that the sun rose and 
set every day. That teacher finally settled in Bloomfield, was afterwards 
many years a Justice of the Peace; for one terra, member of the legislature; 
and for one term, a member of Congi'ess; now known as Gen. Micah Bi'ooks, 
of Brook's Grove, Livingston county^ 

■ The first meeting house in the Genesee country, was erected in Bloomfield, 
in ]801« A church and society had been formed some years before; Seth 
Williston and Jedediah Bushnell, missionaries from the east, labored occa 
sionally and sometimes continually in Bloom.field, from 1797 to 1800. Au 
extensive revival in that and adjoining towns continued under their labors for 
several years,' and in 1801, they raised a large meeting house. Robert^ 
Powers was the builder. Meetings were held in^it summer and winter, when 
it was in anuiifinished condition, and without warining it, until 1807 and '8, 
when it was finished; Andrew Colton being the architect. 

Ancient ocLupancy was distinctly traced at the period of early settlement 



19-1 rilELPS AND GoraiAM's rURCnASE. 

iu ])l(H>inru'ld. Ou the larm of Nalliun Waldron, and on otliei-s colltig\lon^<, 
in tlio north cjist corner of the town, near wlioro tlio Adams, Noitons and 
linos lii-st sottlod, many gnn liarrols, locks and stoi'k barri'Is, of Fivnoli con- 
struction, and tomahawks, wore plowed np and used for niakino- or mendin<^ 
agricultural implements. 1 ha\e seen as many as 15 or 'JO barrels at a time, at 
Waldron's blacksmith shop, while ho and David Reese, his journeyman, were 
working- them up. 1 once saw Reese pointino- out in the roof of the shop, 
tho effect of n ball fired trom an old bai'rel while heatinij it in the foro'(>; his 
lioarers -wouilerino- how^ the i>owder retained its strength for so long a period, 
the barrel having lain muler ground. 

There wore many old Indian burying grounds in Bloomiield, and many of 
the gra\es Avere opened in search of curiosities. In some of them, hatchets 
were found, but gcTierally nothing but bones. In ploughing tho ground, 
bones, skulls, and sometimes hatchets, were found. The stones used by the 
Indians for skinning their game and ])eoling bark, were found in various 
localities. Those stones were very hard, Avorked olf smooth, and brought 
down to aTi edge at ono end, and generally from four to six inches long. 
Pestle stones used for pounding their corn wore frequently found. They 
were from ono to one a half feet in length, round and smooth, with a round 
point at both ends, something like a rolling jiin ; and they were frequently 
used by the settlers for that purpose. 



The venerable Deacon Stephen Dudley, who settled in Bloomfield 
as early as 1709, still survives. In the summer of 1818 he informeil 
the author that there were then less tiian twenty persons living in 
Bloomfield, who were adults when he came there. He also inform- 
ed the author, that Gen. Fellows built the first framed barn west of 
Canandaigua ; and as an instance of the value of lands in an early 
day, he related an anecdote : — Gen. Fellows Lad no building spot 
on the road, on his large tract, but an acre of land on a lot adjoin- 
ing was desirable for that purpose. Proposing to buy it, he asked 
the owner his price, who replied: — "1 declare. General, if you 
take an acre right out of my larm, I think you should give me as 
much lis Ji/ty cents for it.'" 

In 1798 a second religious society was organized in Bloomfield, 
called the "North Congregational Society." The first trustees 
were : — Jared Boughton, Joseph Brace, and Thomas Ilawley. 



MICAH BROOKS. 



Micah Brooks, was a son of David Brooks, A. M., of Cheshire, 
Conn. The father was a graduate of Yale College. He belonged 



£3* 



PmiLPS AND GOPvIIAM's PT;RCnA.SE. 105 

to the first quota of men furnishod by the town of Cheshire ; en- 
tering the service first as a private soldier, but soon becoming the 
quarter master of his regiment. He was a member of the legisla- 
ture of Connecticut, at the period of the surrender of Burgoyne, 
and a delegate to the State Convention that adopted the U. S. con- 
stitution at Hartford. After his first military service, he alternated 
in discharging the duties of a minister and then of a soldier — going 
out in cases of exigency with his shouldered musket ; especially at 
the burning of Danbury and the attack upon New Haven. After 
the Revolution, he retired to his farm in Cheshire, where he died in 
1802. 

Micah Brooks, in 1790, having just arrived at the age of twenty- 
one years, set out from his father's house to visit the new region, the 
fame of which was then spreading throughout New England. Af- 
ter a pretty thorough exploration of western New York, he returned 
to Whitestown, and visited the country again in the fall of 1797, stop- 
ping at Bloomfield and engaging as a school teacher ; helping to build 
his own log school house. ECt' See reminiscences of Mr. James 
Sperry. Returning to Cheshire, he spent a part of a summer in 
studying surveying with Professor Meigs, with the design of enter- 
ing into the service of the Holland Company. In the fall of '98, 
he returned, and passing Bloomfield, extended his travels to the Falls 
of Niagara on foot, pursuing the old Niagara trail ; meeting with 
none of his race, except travellers, and Poudry, at Tonawanda, with 
whom and his Sqjiaw wife, he remained over night. After visiting 
the Falls — seeing for himself the v/onder of which he had read so 
imperfect descrijgtions in New England school books, he went up 
the Canada side to Fort Erie, cro.ssing the river at Black Rock. 
The author gives a graphic account of his morning' s walk from 
r>lack Rock to where Buffalo now is, in his own language, as he is 
(juite confident he could not improve it: — "It was a bright, clear 
morning in November. In my lonely walk along the bank of the 
Lake, I looked out upon its vast expanse of water, that unstirred 
by the wind, was as transparent as a sea of glass. There was no 
marks of civilization upon its shores, no American sail to float 
upon its surface. Standing to contemplate the scene, — here, I re- 
flected, the goodness of a Supreme Being has prepared a new crea- 
tion, ready to be occupied by the people of his choice. At what 
period will the shores of this beautiful Lake be adorned with dwel- 



196 PHELPS AND GOEHAm'S PUECHASE. 

lings and all the appointments of civilized life, as now seen upon the 
shores of the Atlantic ? I began to tax my mathematical powers to 
see when the east would become so overstocked with population, 
as to be enabled to furnish a surplus to fill up the unoccupied space 
between me and my New England friends. It was a hard question 
to solve ; and I concluded if my New England friends could see 
me, a solitary wanderer, upon the shores of a far off western Lake, 
indulging in such wild speculations, they would advise me to return 
and leave such questions to future generations. But I have ci'ten 
thought that I had then, a presentiment of apart of what half a 
century has accomplished." Walking on to the rude log tavern of 
Palmer, which was one of the then, but two or three habitations, on 
all the present site of Buffalo, he added to his stock of bread and 
cheese, and struck off again into the wilderness, on the Indian trail, 
— slept one night in the surveyor's camp of James Smedley, and 
after getting lost in the dense dark woods where Batavia now is, 
reached the transit line, where Mr. Ellicott's hands were engaged in 
erecting their primitive log store house. 

Renewing his school teaching in Bloomfield, in '99, he purchased 
the farm where he resided for many years. It was at a period of 
land speculation, and inflation of prices, and he paid the high price 
of $6 per acre. Boarding at Deacon Bronson's — working for him 
two days in the week for his board, and for others during haying 
and harvesting, he commenced a small improvement. 

Returning to Connecticut, he kept a school for the winter, and in 
the spring came out with some building materials ; building a small 
framed house in the course of the season. In 1801 he brought out 
two sisters as house keepers, one of whom as has been atated, be- 
came the wife of Col. Asher Saxton, and the other Curtiss, a 

settler in Gorham. In 1802 he married the daughter of Deacon 
Abel Hall of Lyme, Conn., a sister of Mrs. Clark Peck of Bloom- 
field. 

He became a prominent, pubhc spirited, and useful Pioneer. 
Receiving in one of the earliest years of his residence in the new 
country, a military commission, he passed through the different gra- 
dations to that of Major General. Appointed to the office of justice 
of the peace in 1806, he was an assistant justice of the county 
courts in 1808, and was the same year elected to the Legislature 
from Ontario county. In 1800, he was an associate commissioner 



PHELPS AOT) GOKHAm's PURCHASE. 197 

with Hugh McNair and Mathevv Warner, to lay out a road from 
Canandaigua to Olean ; and another from Hornellsville to the mouth 
of the Genesee River. In the war of 1812, he was out on the 
frontier in two campaigns, serving with the rank of Colonel. In 
1814 was elected to Congress. He was a member of the State 
Convention in 1822, and a Presidential Elector in 1824. He wais 
for twenty years a Judge of the Ontario county courts. 

In 1823, he purchased in connection with Jellis Clute and John 
B. Gibson, of Mary Jemison, commonly called the White Woman, 
the Gardeau tract on the Genesee River. Selecting a fine portion 
of it for a large farm and residence, on the road from Mount Mor- 
ris to Nunda, he removed to it soon after the purchase. The small 
village and place of his residence is called "Brook's Grove. " 

Gen. Brooks is now 75 years of age, retaining his mental facul- 
ties unimpaired ; as an evidence that his physical constitution holds 
out well, after a long life of toil and enterprise, it may be remarked 
that in the most inclement month of the last winter, he made a jour- 
ney to New England and the city of New York. His present wife 
was a sister of the first wife of Frederick Smith, Esq. of Palmyra, 
and of the second wife of Gen. Mills, of Mount Morris. His sons 
are Lorenzo H. Brooks, of Canadea, and Micah W. Brooks, residing 
at the homestead. A daughter is the wife of Henry O'Rielly Esq., 
formerly the editor of the Rochester Daily Advertiser, and P. M. 
of Rochester; now a resident of New York, widely known as the 
enterprising proprietor of thousands of miles of Telegraph lines in 
different States of the Union ; another, is the wife of Mr. George 
Ellwanger, one of the enterprising proprietors of Mount Hope Gar- 
den and Nursery ; another the wife of Theodore F. Hall, formerly 
of Rochester, now of Brook's Grove. He has two unmarried 
daughters, one of whom is a well educated mute, and is now a 
teacher in the deaf and dumb institution at Hartford, Conn. 

The history of Micah Brooks furnishes a remarkable instance of 
a man well educated, and yet unschooled. The successful teacher, 
the competent Justice and Judge — as a member of our State and 
National councils, the drafter of bills and competent debater — the 
author of able essays upon internal improvements, and other sub- 
jects—even now in his old age, a vigorous writer, and a frequent 
contributor to the public press: — never enjoyed, in all, a twelve 
months of school tuition ! The small library of his father, a good 



198 PIEELPS AJsT> GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 

native intellect, intercourse with the world, a laudable ambition and 
self reliance, supplied the rest. 

The original purchasers of that part of the old town of Bloom- 
field, which is now the town of West Bloomfield, (or 10,560 acres of 
it,) were Robert Taft, Amos Hall, Nathan Marvin and Ebenezer 
Curtis. All of these, it is presumed, became settlers in 1789, '90 ; 
as was also Jasper P. Sears, Peregrine Gardner, Sam^uel Miller, 
John Algur, Sylvanus Thayer. 

Amos Hall was from Guilford, Conn. He was connected with 
the earliest military organizations, as a commissioned officer, and 
rose to the rank of Major General, succeeding William Wadsworth. 
At one period during the war of 1812, he was the commander-in- 
ch'ief upon the Niagara frontier. He also held several civil offices ; 
and in all early years was a prominent and useful citizen. He died 
in 1827, aged GO years. The surviving sons are : — David S. Hall, 
merchant, Geneva ; Thomas Hall, superintendant of Rochester and 
Syracuse R. Road ; Morris Hall, Cass county Michigan ; Heman 
Hall, a resident of Pennsylvania. An only daughter became the 
wife of Josiah Wendle, of Bloomfield. 

Gen. Hall was the deputy Marshall, and took the U. S. census in 
Ontario county, in 1790, in July and August, it is presumed. His 
roll has been preserved by the family, and will be found in the Ap- 
pendix, (No. 9.) 



HONEOYE — PITTSTOWN" — NOW RICHMOND. 



In April, 1787, tln'ee young men, Gideon Pitts, James Goodwin, 
and Asa Simmons left their native place, (Dighton, Mass.,) to seek a 
new home in the wilderness. They came up the Susquehannah 
and located at Newtown, now Elmira. Here, uniting with other 
adventurers they erected the first white man's habitation upon the 
site of the present village ; and during the summer and fall planted 
and raised Indian corn. Returning to Dighton, their favorable rep- 
resentations of the country induced the organization of the " Dighton 
Company" for the purpoip of purchasing a large tract as soon as 
Phelps and Gorham had perfected their title. To be in season, Cal- 
vin Jacobs was deputed to attend the treaty with Gideon Pitts, and 
select the tract. As soon as the townships were surveyed, the com- 



PIIELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 199 

pany purchased 46,080 acrfes of the land embraced in Townships 9 
in the 3d, 4th, and 5th Ranges ; being most of what was after- 
wards embraced in the towns of Richmond, Bristol, and the fraction 
of number nine, on the west side of Canandaigua lake. The title 
was taken for the company, in the name of Calvin Jacobs and 
John Smith. 

In 1789, Capt. Peter Pitts, his son William, Dea. George Codding, 
and his son George, Calvin Jacobs, and John Smith, came via the 
Susquehannah route to the new purchase, and surveyed what is now 
the town of Richmond and Bristol. One of the party, (the Rev. 
John Smith,) on their arrival at Canandaigua, preached the first 
sermon there, and first in all the Genesee country, save those 
preached by Indian missionaries, by the chaplain at Fort Niagara 
and at Brant's Indian church at Lewiston. The lands having been 
divided by lottery, Capt. Pitts drew for his share, 3000 acres, at 
the foot of Honeoye lake, embracing the flats, and a cleared field 
which had been the site of an Indian village destroyed by Sullivan's 
army. 

In the spring of 1790, Gideon and William Pitts commenced the 
improvement of this tract. Coming in with a four ox team, they 
managed to make a shelter for themselves with the boards of their 
sled, ploughed up a few acres of open flats, and planted some spring 
crops, from which they got a good yield, preparatory to the coming 
in of the remainder of the family. Withal, fattening some hogs 
that William had procured in Cayuga county, driving them in, and 
carrying his own, and their provisions upon his back. Capt. Peter 
Pitts, started with the family in October, in company with John 
Codding and family. They came from Taunton River in a char- 
tered vessel, as far as Alban}^ and from Schenectady by water, 
landing at Geneva. The tediousness of the journey, may be judged 
from the fact that starting from Dighton on the 11th of October 
they did not arrive at Pitt's flats until the 2d day of December. 
A comfortable log house had been provided by Gideon and William. 
The family consisted of the old gentleman, his wife, and ten children 
besides hired help. For three years they constituted the only family 
in town ; their neighbors, the Wadsv^^orths at Big Tree, Capt. Taft 
in West Bloomfield, and the Coddings and Goodings, in Bristol. 

The House of this early family being on the Indian trail from 
Canandaigua to Genesee river — which constituted the early trav- 



200 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

elled road for the. white settlers — "Capt. Pitts" and "Pitts Flats" 
had a wide notoriety in all primitive days. It was the stopping 
place of the Wadsworths and Jones, of Thomas Morris and in 
fact of all of the early prominent Pioneers of that region. Louis 
Phillipe, when from a wanderer in the backwoods of America, he had 
become the occupant of a throne, remembered that he had spent a 
night in the humble log house of Capt. Pitts. The Duke Liancourt, 
strolling every where through this region, in 1795, with his com- 
panions went from Canandaigua to make the patriarch of the back- 
woods a visit.* 

The Indians upon their trail, camping and hunting upon their old 
grounds, the flats, and the up lands around the lloneoye Lake 
were the almost constant neighbors of Capt. Pitts, in the earliest 
years. Generally they were peaceable and well disposed ; a party 
of them however, most of whom were intoxicated, on their way to 
the Pickering treaty at Canandaigua in 1794, attacked the women 
of the family who refused them liquor, and Capt. Pitts, his son's 
and hired men, coming to the rescue, a severe conflict ensued. 
The assailed attacking the assailants with clubs, shovels and tongs, 
soon vanquished them though peace was not restored, until Hor- 
atio Jones, fortunately arriving on his way to the treaty, interfered. 

The first training in the Genesee country was held at Captain 
Pitt's house ; a militia company, commanded by Captain William 
Wadsworth ; and Pitt's Flats was for many years a training ground. 

Captain Peter Pitts died in 1812, aged 74 years. His eldest son 
Gideon, who was several times a member of the Legislature, and 
a delegate to the staje convention in 18*22, died in 1829 aged G3 
years. The only survivors of the sons and daughters of Capt. 
Pitts, are, Peter Pitts, and Mrs. Blackmer. A son, Samuel Pitts 

* Tlie Duke has made a record of it : — " We set out with Blacons to visit an estate 
belonging to one Mr. Pitt, of which we had heard mncli talk through the country. 
On our iLiTival we found the house crowded with Presbyterians ; its owner atteniling 
to a noisv, tedious harangue, delivered by a minister witli sucli violence of elocution, 
that he appeared all over in a perspiration." [It was the Rev. Zattock Hunn.j " AVo 
found it very ditHcult to obtain sonn^ o;its for our horses and a few liasty morsels for our 
dinner." The Duke however admired the fine herd of cattle ; and with characteristic 
gallantry, adds, that " a view of the handsome married and unmiU'ried women" that he 
saw attending the meeting, " was even more delectable to our senses llian tlie fine 
rural scenery" Kev. Zadock Hunn, who was not so fortunate as a pait of his hearers 
in falling into the good graces of tlie Duke, Mrs. Blackinan, a surviving daugliter of 
Capt, Pitts, says: — ■" was an old man then. He held meetings at my father's liouse 
as early as '9*3, coming at .stated times. He also lield meetings in Canandaigua and 
Biistoi" She differs with the Duke — says they "used to have good meetings; much 
better cues tlxan we do now." 



PHELPS AND GOEHASl's PUECHASE. 201 

was an early and prominent citizen of Livonia. The descendants 
of Capt. Pitts are numerous. Levi Blackmer settled in Pittstown 
in '95, is still alive, aged 78 years, his wife, (the daughter of Capt. 
Pitts,) aged 72. In the summer of 1848, the boy who had driven 
an ox-team to the Genesee country, in 1795, was at work on the 
highway. 

The Duke Liancourt, said that Capt. Pitts had to "go to mill with 
a sled, twelve miles " ; this was to Norton's Mills. In '98, Thomas 
Morris built a grist and saw mill on the outlet of Hemlock Lake, and 
in 1802 Oliver Phelps built a grist mill on Mill Creek. 

In '95, Drs. Lemuel and Cyrus Chipman, Irom Paulet, Vermont, 
and their brother-in-law, Philip Reed, came into Pittstown, with 
their families. They came all the way by sleighing, with horse and 
ox teams. The teams were driven by Levi Blackmer, Pierce 
Chamberlain, Asa Dennison, and Isaac Adams, all of whom became 
residents of the town. They were eighteen days on the road. 

Lemuel Chipman had been a surgeon in the army of the Revolu- 
tion. He was one of a numerous family of that name in Vermont, 
a brother of the well known lawyer, and law professor in Middle- 
bury College. In all early years he was a prominent, public spirited 
and useful helper in the new settlements ; one of the best specimens 
of that strong minded, energetic race of men that were the founders 
of settlement and civil institutions in the Genesee country. He was 
an early member of the Legislature, and a judge of the courts of 
Ontario county ; was twice elector of President and Vice President ; 
and was a State Senator. Soon after 1800, he purchased, in con- 
nection with Oliver Phelps, the town of Sheldon, in Wyoming 
county, and the town was settled pretty much under his auspices. 
He removed to that town in 1828, where he died at an advanced 
age. His sons were Lemuel Chipman of Sheldon, deceased, father 
of Mrs. Guy H. Salisbury of Buffalo ; Fitch Chipman of Sheldon ; 
and Samuel Chipman of Rochester, the well known pioneer in the 
temperance movement — now the editor of the Star of Temperance. 
A daughter became the wife of Dr. Cyrus Wells of Oakland county, 
Michigan, and another the wife of Dr. E. W. Cheney, of Canan- 
daigua. 

Dr. Cyrus Chipman emigrated at an early period to Pontiac, 
Michigan, where he was a Pioneer, and where his descendants 
principally reside. 
13 



203 piiELPS AND gorham's puechase. 

In the year 1796, Roswell Turner came from Dorset, Vermont;, 
took land on the outlet of Hemlock Lake, cleared a few acres, built 
a log house, and in the following winter moved on his family, and 
liis father and mother. The family had previously emigrated from 
Connecticut to Vermont. After a long and tedious journey, with 
jaded horses, they arrived at Cayuga Lake, where they were des- 
tined to encounter a climax of hardship and endurance. Crossing 
upon the ice on horseback, a part of the family, the Pioneer, his 
mother and two small children, broke through in a cold day, and 
were with difficulty saved from drowning by the help of those who 
came to their rescue from the shore. Arrived at their new home, 
sickness soon added to their afflictions, and two deaths occurred in 
the family the first year. The residence of the family was changed 
in a year or two to the neighborhood of Allen's Hill, where they 
remained until 1804, and then, as if they had' not seen enough of 
llie hardships of Pioneer life, pushed on to the Holland Purchase, 
into the dark hemlock woods of the west part of Wyoming, the 
I'ioneer making his own road, west of Warsaw, thirteen miles ; 
he and his family being the first that settled in all the region west 
of Warsaw, south of Attica and the old Buffalo road, and east of 
Hamburgh; — pages could be filled with the details of the hard- 
ships of the first lonely winter, its deep snows, the breaking of 
roads out to Wadsworth's Flats, and digging corn from under the 
snow to save a famishing stock of cattle too weak to subsist upon 
brouse, and other incidents which would show the most rugged 
features of backwoods life ; but it is out of the present beat. Ros- 
well Turner died in 1800. His sons were, the late Judge Horace 
S. Tvu'ner of Sheldon ; the author of this work ; and a younger 
brother, Chipman Phelps Turner of Aurora, Erie county. Daugh- 
ters — Mrs. Farnum of Bennington; Mrs. Sanders of Aurora; 
and the first wife of Pliny Sexton, of Palmyra. """ 



PITTSTOWN — REMINISCENCES OF MRS. FARNUM. 



I lieinciiiber very well, that vt lien early deaths occurred in our family, no 
seasoned boaixls could be obtained i'or ootiins, sliort of taking down a parti- 
tion of our log-house. The second winter, my.sclf, a sister, iind young- bro- 
ther, went to school two miles and a half through the woods, into what is 
now Livonia. AVe went upon the old Big Tree Road, and mostly had to 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 203 

beat our own path, for but a few sleighs passed during the winter. There 
was but one family — that of Mr. Briggs — on the way. 

I think it was in the summer of 1802, that a little daughter of one of our 
neighboi-s, Sewal Boyd, three years old, was lost in the woods. A lively 
sympathy was created in the neighborhood, the woods were scoured, the out- 
let waded, and the flood wood removed ; on the third day, she was found in 
the woods ahve, having some berries in her hand, which the instincts of 
hunger had caused her to pick. The musquetoes had preyed upon her until 
they had caused running sores upon her face and arms, and the little wander-' 
er had passed through a terrific thunder storm. 

The Indians, if they were guilty of occasional outrage, had some of the 
finest impulses of the human heart. The wife of a son of Capt. Pitts, w^ho 
had always been kind to them, was upon her death bed; hearing of it, the 
Squaws came and wailed around the house, with all the intense grief they 
exhibit when mourning the death of kindred. 

Upon "Phelps' Flats," as they were called, near the Old Indian Castle, 
at the f jot of iloneoye Lake, in the first ploughing, many brass kettles, guns, 
beads, &c., wei'e found. An old Squaw that had formerly resided upon the 
Flats, said tliat the approach of Sullivan's army was not discovered by them 
until they were seen coming over the hill near where Capt. Pitts built his 
Iiouse. They were quietly braiding their corn, and boiling their succotash. 
She said there was a sudden desertion of their village; all took to flight and 
left the invaders an uncontested field. One Indian admitted that he never 
looked back until he reached Buffalo Creek. 

In the earliest years, deer would come in flocks, and feed upon our green 
wheat ; Elisha Pi-att, who was a hunter, made his home at our house, and I 
have known him to kill six and seven in a day. Bears would come and take 
the hogs from directly before the doors of the new settlers — sometimes in open 
day light. I saw one who had seized a valuable sow belonging to Peter 
Allen, and retreated to the woods, raising her with his paws clenched in her 
spine, and beating her against a tree to deprive her of life ; persisting even af- 
ter men had approached and were attacking him with clubs. 

I could relate many wolf stories, but one will perhaps be so incredible that 
it will suffice. A Mr. Hurlburt, that li\ed in the west part of the town, was 
riding through our neighborhood, on a winter evening, and passing a strip of 
woods near our house, a pack of wolves sun-ounded him, but his dog diveiled 
their attention until he escaped. While sitting upon his horse, telling us the 
story, the pack came within fifteen rods of the house, and stopping upon a 
knoll almost deafened us with their howl. Retreating into the woods a short 
distance, they seemed by the noise to have a fight among themselves, and in 
the morning, it was ascertained that they had actually killed and eat one of 
■ their own number ! * 

Capt. Harmon, buUt a bam in 1802 or '.3 ; at the raising, an adopted son 
of his, by the name of Butts, jvas killed outright, and Isaac Bishop was stun- 
ned, supposed to be dead. He recovered, but with the entire loss of the fac- 



* This is not incredible ; other similar cases are given upon good authority. Fam- 
ishing, ravenous ; a figlit occurs', and tasting blood, they know no distinction between 
their own and other species. — Abthob. 



204 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

ult\' of memory. Altliough Le liad possessed a good education, he had lost 
it all, even the names of his childi-en, his A\-ife and farming utensils. His 
wife re-taught him the rudiments of education, beginning with the ABC, 
and the names of things. 

Rattle snakes were too common a thing to speak of; but wc had a few of 
another kind of snake, that I have never Inward or read of, elsewhere. It had 
a horn with which it would make a noise like the i-attle of a rattle snake. 



In 1796 and '7, Peter Allen and his family ; his brother Nathaniel, 
and the father, Moses Allen, became residents of the town. The 
father and mother died in early years. Peter Allen was connected 
with early military organizations, and rose to the rank of a Brig. 
Gen. He was in command of a Regiment at the battle of Queens- 
ton, in which ho was made a prisoner ; afterwards a men)ber of the 
Legislature from Ontario. DCj^ See Peter Allen and " Hen. Fel- 
lows," Hammond's Political History. In 1816 he emigrated to In- 
diana, becoming one of the pioneer settlers of Terra Haute; a por- 
tion of his original farm, being now embraced in the village. He 
died in 1837, many of his descendants are residents of Terra 
Haute. Nathaniel Allen was the primitive blacksmith of Pitts- 
town ; working first as a journeyman in Canandaigua, and then 
starting a shop, first in the neighborhood of Pitts Flats, and after- 
wards, on the Hill, that assumed his name. He was an early ofncer 
of militia, deputy sheriff, member of the legislature. In the war 
of 1812, he successively filled the post of commissioner and pay 
master, on the Niagara Frontier. After the war, he was sheriff of 
Ontario county, and in later years, for two terms, its representative 
in Congress. He died at Louisville, Ky., in 1833, where he was a 
contractor for the construction of the canal around the Falls of the 
Ohio. Of five sons, but one survives. Dr. Orrin Allen, a resident 
of Virginia. An only daughter was the first wife of the Hon. R. 
L. Rose, who is the occupant of the homestead of the family on 
Allen's Hill. The family were from Dutchess county. The daugh- 
ters of Moses Allen became the wives of Elihu GifTord, of Easton, 
Washington county, Samuel Wood worth of May vi lie, Mont, co., 
Samuel Robinson of Newark, Wayne co., Fairing Wilson, of Stock- 
bridge, Mass., Roswell Turner of Pittstown, Ont., and Stephen 
Durfee of Palmyra, Wayne county. 

Sylvester Curtis erected the first distillery in town ; and James 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 205 

Henderson who was a pioneer at the head of Conesus Lake, was an 
early landlord upon the Hill. 

David Akin, Wm. Baker, Thomas Wilson, James Hazen, Silas 
Whitney, Cyrus Wells, the Johnsons, David Winton, Nathaniel 
Harmon, William Warner, were settlers in earliest years. 

Philip Reed, who came in with the Chipmans, died about twenty 
years ago. His surviving sons are Col. John F. Reed, Silas Reed, 
Wheeler Reed, Wm. F. Reed, and Philip Reed, all residing on and 
near the old homestead. 

As early as 1796 or '7, Elijah and Stiles Parker, Elisha Belknap, 
Col. John Green, John Garlinghouse, became residents of the town. 
The four first named, emigrated many years since to Kentucky, and 
in late years some of them have pioneered still further on, over 
the Rocky Mountains to Oregon. Joseph Garlinghouse, a son of 
the early pioneer, John Garlinghouse, an ex-sherifF of Ontario 
county, a prominent enterprising farmer, still resides in Richmond. 
A son of his married a daughter of Erastus Spalding, the early 
pioneer at the mouth of Genesee River ; another, the daughter of 
David Stout, a pioneer in Victor and Perinton. Daughters, are 
Mrs. Comstock, of Avon, and Mrs. Sheldon, of Le Rov. Mrs. Brifo-s 
and Mrs. Hopkins, of Richmond, are daughters of John Garling- 
house ; and a son and daughter reside in Iowa. 

Asa Dennison who is named in connection with the Chipmans, 
still survives, a resident of Chautauque county. 



GORHAM. 



In all of the old town of Gorham, at first Easton, (what was is 
now Gorham and Hopewell,) a few settlers began to drop in along 
on the main road from Canandaigua to Geneva, as early as 1790. In 
July of that year, there were the families of Daniel Gates, Daniel 

Warren, Sweets, Platts, Samuel Day, and Israel Cha- 

pin jr. who had commenced the erection of the mills upon the 
outlet. Mr. Day was the father of David M. Day, the early ap- 
prentice to the printing business with John A. Stephens in Canan- 
andaigua, and the founder of what is now one of the prominent 
and leading newspapers of western New York, the Buffalo Commer- 



206 PHELPS AND G0KHA5I S PUKCIIASE. 

cial Advertiser. Daniel Warren emigrated to Sheldon, now Wyo- 
ming CO., in 1810 or '11, where he died within a few years; Pome- 
roy Warren, of Attica, Wyoming co., is a son of his, and Mrs. 
Harry Hamilton, near Little Fort, Illinois, is a daughter. 

Daniel Gates and his son Daniel Gates jr. were from Stonington 
Conn., both were out with Mr. Phelps in his primitive advent. 
They purchased land in Gorham, paying Is Gd per acre. The old 
gentleman died in 1831, aged 87 years. He was the first collector of 
taxes of the town of Gorham. His descendants are numerous, a 
large family of sons and daughters becoming heads of families. 
His daughters became the wives of Asahcl Burchard, the early 
pioneer of Lima ; Asa Benton, Shubel Clark and James Wyckoft' 
of Gorham. Daniel Gates, jr. died in 18J2 ; his wife was a sister of 
the wife of Major Miller the early pioneer near Buffalo, and of 
the wife of Capt. Follett ; Daniel Gates of Palmyra is a son. 

Those whose names will follow, were all residents of Gorham as 

early as 1796 or '7: — James Wood, Perley Gates, Ingalls, 

Frederick Miller, Silas Reed, Capt. Frederick Follett, Lemuel, 
George, Isaiah and W^illiam Babcock ; Joseph and James Birdseye ; 
John Warren. 

Major Frederick Miller left Gorham soon after 1800, and was a 
Pioneer at Black Rock, the early landlord and keeper of the ferry 
at that point. William Miller of Buffalo, is his son ; and Mrs. 
Heman B. Potter is a daughter. Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Follett and 
Mrs. Daniel Gates, jr., were daughters of George Babcock. 

Silas Reed died in 1834, at the age of 76 years ; an only sur- 
viving son, is Seneca Reed of Greece ; a daughter became the 
wife of Levi Taylor, an early Pioneer of Lockport, now a resident 
of Ionia, Michigan. 

Frederick Follett, in 1778, was among the border settlers of 
VYyoming Valley. In company with Lieut. Buck, Messrs. Stephen 
Pettibone and Elisha Williams, on the Kingston side of the river, 
within sight of the Wilkesbarre Fort, the party were suddenly at- 
tacked by twenty Indians. Three of the four were murdered and 
scalped. Mr. Follett was pierced by two balls, one in either shoulder, 
and stabbed nine times with spears. Still having consciousness, he 
fell on his face — being unable to escape — held his breath as much 
as possible, and feigned death, in hopes he might escape further muti- 
lation at the hands oi his ruthless pursuers. But he was not thus 



PHELPS AKD GOPJIAm's PURCHASE. 207 

to be spared. The Indians came up to him, and without any un- 
necessary delay or useless ceremony, scalped him as lie lay in his 
gore and agony ; and but for the approach of assistance from the 
fort, would no doubt have ended his days with the tomahawk. 
The spear wounds were severe and deep — one of which penetra- 
ted his stomach, so that its contents came out at his side ! His 
case was deemed hopeless, but kindness prompted all the aid that 
medical and surgical skill could aflbrd. He was placed in charge 
of Dr. William Hooker Smith, wiio did all in his power to save 
him — and his efforts were crowned with success, and he became a 
hearty and well man. He was then young and full of vigor, and 
never experienced any particular inconvenience from these severe 
wounds, except occasional pain from one of the bullets, which was 
never extracted from his body, and extreme sensitiveness to the 
slightest touch, or even the air, of that portion of the head from 
which the scalp was removed. 

He afterwards entered the naval service — was captured, and 
taken to Halifax, and confined in a dungeon six months ; was re- 
leased ; entered the service again, and was twice captured by the 
British, and eventually returned to his native country, to Dalton, 
Berkshire county, Mass., from whence he removed at an early day 
to Gorham. 

It is a somewhat singular coincidence that his eldest son — now 
dead — who entered the naval service as a midshipman, in 1812, 
was captured on board the Chesapeake in her engagement with the 
Shannon, and was also imprisoned in the same dungeon six months 
that his father had occupied during our first conflict with the pow- 
ers of England. 

" Capt. Follett " is frequently mentioned in the manuscripts of 
Charles Williamson, and would seem to have been in his employ as 
early as 1791. His surviving sons are, : — Orrin Follett, an early 
printer and editor at Batavia, and a member of the legislature from 
Genesee county, now a resident of Sandusky, Ohio ; his second 
wife, a niece of James D. Bemis, of Canandaigua ; Nathan Follett 
of Batavia ; and Frederick Follett, of Batavia, the successor of his 
brother, as a printer and editor — for a long period honorable asso- 
siatcd with the public press of the Genesee country — and at 
present, one of the Board of Canal Commissioners of this State ; 
having in immediate charge the western division of the Erie Canal, 



208 PHELPS AND GOEHAII S PURCnASE. 

and the Genesee Valley Canal. A son of his, is Lieut. Frederick 
M. Follett, of the U. S. army, a jrraduate of West Point; a cir- 
cumstance worthy of mention, as the patronage of that national 
school is not always as well bestowed, as in this instance, upon the 
descendant of one so eminently entitled to be remembered for ser- 
vices, sacrifices and sufferings, unparalleled in our Revolutionary 
annals. 



BRISTOL. 



Gamaliel Wilder and Joseph Gilbert were the Pioneers of Bris- 
tol. About the period that Mr. Phelps was holding his treaty with 
the Indians, in 1788, they locatcvl at the Old Indian Orchard, and 
commenced improvements. In 1790, Mr. Wilder built the small 
Pioneer Mill that has been often named in other connections. He 
died many years since. Joseph Gilbert was living a few months 
since, at the age of 93 years ; if living now, he is the oldest sur- 
viving resident of the Genesee country. 

Deacon William Gooding and George Codding were among the 
few who wintered in the Genesee country in 1 789, '90. Both 
families have been widely known, and few have been more usefu! 
in the work of subduing the wilderness, and promoting the health- 
ful progress of religion, education and sound moral principles. The 
descendants of George Codding are numerous, and mostly reside in 
the early home of their Pioneer ancestor. William T. Codding is 
the only surviving son. Ebenezer Gooding, of Henrietta, is a son 
of the early Pioneer ; another son, Stephen, resides in Illinois. 
Deacon John Gooding, another son, was one of the early founders 
of Lockport, Niagara county, where he died in 1838 or '9. 

The earliest record of a town meeting in Bristol, is that of 1797. 
In that year, William Gooding was chosen Supervisor, and John 
Codding, Town Clerk. Other town officers : — Fauner Codding, 
Nathan Allen, Nathaniel Fisher, James Gooding, Jabez Hicks, 
Moses Porter, Amos Barber, Alden Sears, jr., George Codding, 
Stephen Sisson, Amos Rice, Ephraim Wilder, Nathan Hatch, 
Peter Ganyard, Elizur Hills, Theophilus Allen, Elnathan Gooding, 
John Simmons. Other citizens of the town in that year, were : — 
Daniel Burt, Moses Porter, Jonathan Wilder, Theophilus Allen, 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 209 

Elnathan Gooding, Chauncey Allen, Samuel Mallo)'y, Ephraini 
Francis, Seth Hathaway, Constant Simmons, James Carl, Zebulon 
Mark. 



MANCHESTER. 



Township 12, R. 2, originally a part of Farmington, now Man- 
chester; settlement cortfimenced as early as 1793. Stephen Jared, 
Joel Phelps, and Joab Gillett, were the first settlers. DC7^ For 
Stephen Phelps, see Palmyra. Gillett, in early years, moved to No. 
9, Canandaigua. 

Nathan Pierce, from Berkshire, was a settler in 1795. But small 
openings had then been made in the forest. Mr. Pierce erected a 
log house, had split bass wood floors, no gable ends, doors, or win- 
dows ; neither boards or glass to be had; and " wolves and bears 
were his near neighbors." Coming from Parker's Mills through 
the woods at night, with his grist on his back, a pack of wolves 
followed him to his door. Brice Aldrich, a Pioneer of Farmington, 
was taking some fresh meat to Canandaigua on horseback, when a 
wolf stoutly contended with him for a share of it. There were 
many Indian hunters camped along on the outlet ; some times the 
whites would carry loads of venison to Canandaigua for them, 
where it would be bought up, and the hams dried and sent to an 
eastern market. Trapping upon the outlet was profitable for both 
Indians and whites. 

Mr. Pierce was supervisor of Farmington for fifteen years, and 
an early magistrate; he died in 1814; his widow is now living, at 
the age of 87 years. His surviving sons are : —Nathan Pierce, 
of Marshall, Michigan, Darius Pierce, of Washtenaw, Ezra Pierce 
of Manchester, Daughters : — Mrs. Peter Mitchell, of Manches- 
ter, Mrs. David Arnold, of Farmington. John McLouth, from 
Berkshire, came in '95, was a brother-in-law of Nathan Pierce ; 
died in 1820. Joshua Van Fleet, was one of the earliest; w^as an 
officer of the Revolution, a member of the legislature from Ontario ; 
a judge anli magistrate, and the first supervisor of Manchester. 
He is 90 years of age, a resident of Marion, Ohio. First merchant, 
Nathan Barlow, a son of Abner Barlow, of Canandaigua ; resides 
now in Michigan. First physician, James Stewart. Nathan 



210 PHELPS AKD GOKHAM's PUKCHASE. 

Jones came in 1799, died in 1839 ; Samuel and Nathan Jones are 
his sons ; Mrs. Dr. Ashley, of Lyons, and Mrs. Simmons of Phelps, 
are his daughters. Jedediah Dewey, from Suffield, Conn., came 
in '98, is still living. Hooker and Joseph Sawyer, were early. 
Gilbert Howland, a brother of Job Rowland, of Farmington, set- 
tled in Manchester in 1800 ; purchasing a large tract of land. The 
Howlands were from Berkshire ; Gilbert died in 1830. Nicholas 
Howland, of Farmington, and Jonathan Howland of Adrian, Mich- 
igan, are his sons. Mrs. Silas Brown of Hamburg, Erie county, is 
a daughter. 

John Lamunion, came in early years ; was from Rhode Island. 
He died ten or twelve years since. His wife, who was the widow 
of Capt. FoUett, died two or three years since. 

Peleg Redfield, was a townsman of Mr. Phelps in Suffield ; was 
a musician in the Connecticut line during the Revolution. In 1799, 
he exchanged with Mr. Phelps, his small farm in Suffield, for 200 
acres, wherever he should choose to locate, on any unsold lands of 
Mr. Phelps. He selected the land where he now resides on the 
Rail Road, a mile and a half weifi of Clifton Springs ; (a judicious 
selection, as any one will allow, who sees the fine farm into which 
it has been converted ; ) clearing three acres and erecting the body of 
a log house, he removed his family in Feb. 1800, consisting of a wife 
and six children. " The journey," says a son of his, "was perform- 
ed with a sleigh and a single span of hoises. Besides the family, 
the sleigh was loaded with beds and bedding, and articles of house- 
hold furniture. 1 shall never forget this, my first journey to the 
Genesee country, especially that portion of it west of Utica. The 
snow was three feet deep, and the horses tired and jaded by the 
cradle-holes, often refused to proceed farther with their load. I 
had the privilege of riding down hill, but mostly walked with my 
father, my mother driving the team." 

Arriving at their new home, the Pioneer family found shelter with 
a new settler, " until the bark would peel in the spring," when a 
roof was put upon the body of the log house that Mr. Redfield had 
erected ; openings made for a door and window, and bass-wood logs 
(Split for a floor. Here the family remained until autun:in, when a 
double log house had been erected. Mr. Redfield is now in his 
80th year; his memory of early events, retentive, and his physical 
constitution remarkable for one of his years. He is the father of 



PURCHASE. 211 

the Hon. Heman J. Redfield, of Batavia ; of Lewis H. Redfield, 
the well known editor, publisher, and bookseller at Syracuse ; Hiram 
Redfield of Rochester, George Redfield, Cass co. Michigan, Alex- 
ander H. Redfield of Detroit, Cuyler Redfield, with whom he re 
sides upon the old homestead. His son, Manning Redfield, of Man 
Chester, was killed in a mill where he was marketing his grain in 
1850. One of his daughters, was the wife of Leonard Short, of 
Shortsville, and the other, of Marvin Minor, a merchant at Bergen 
and Johnson's creek. ." I could have made my location at Fori 
Hill, near Canandaigua," said the old gentleman to the author, "but 
a town was growing up there, and I feared its influence upon my 
boys." There are many Pioneer fathers who have lived to regret, 
that they had not been governed by the same prudent motive. 

The Pioneer mother died in 1844, aged 80 years. It will appeal 
incredible to the house keepers, and young mothers of the present 
day, when they are told, that Mrs. Redfield, in early years, when 
she had a* family of six and seven children, performed all her ordin- 
ary house- work, milked her own cows ; and carded, spun and wove, 
all the woolen and linen cloth that the family wore. But the old 
gentleman thinks it should be added, that he and the boys lightened 
her labor, by uniformily wearing buckskin breeches in the winter ; 
though the mother had them to make. 



REMINISCENCES OF PELEG REDFIELD. 



In 1800, a log house had been vacated; we fitted it up and hired Elam 
Crane* to teach a school. It was a mile from my house, and my boys used 
to go through the woods by marked trees. 

In early years, wolves were a gi-eat nuisance ; nothing short of a pen sixteen 
rails high, would protect our sheep. In winters, when hungry, they would 
collect together and prowl around the log dwellings; and if disappointed in 
securing any prey, their howling would startle even backwoodsmen. The 
Indian wai-s upon the wolf with gi-eat hatred; it is in a spirit of re\enge for 
their preying upon their game, the deer. In the side hill, along on my farm, 
they dug pits, covered them over with hght bmsh and leaves, and bending 
down small trees, suspended the oft'als of deer directly over the pits. In 
springing for the bait the wolf would land in the bottom of the pits where they 
could easily be killed. The salmon used to ascend the Canandaigua outlet, 
as far up as Shortsville, before mill dams were erected. The speckled trout 
were plenty in the Sulphur Spring brook ; and in aU the small streams. 

* Mr. Crane died recently in south Bristol aged 83 years; he came to the Genesee 
countiy in 1788. 



212 PHELPS AiSTD GORHAm's PUECIIASE. 

In 1805, I was erecting- niy frame house, and wanted glass and nails, I 
I went Avith oxen and sled to Utica, carrying 50 bushels of wheat. I sold it for 
$1,68 per bushel, to Watts Sherman, a merchant of Utica, and paid 18d per 
jjound for wrought nails ; $7 50 for two boxes of glass.* 

It was pretty easy for young men to secure farms, in the earliest years of 
settlement. I knew many who received a dollar a day for their labor, and 
bought lands for twenty five cents per acre. 



A Baptist Church was organized in Manchester in 1804; the 
first Trustees were : — Ebenezer Pratt, Joseph Wells and Jeremiah 
Dewey. This was the first legal organization, a society had been 
formed previous to 1800. Judge Phelps gave the society a site for 
a meeting house, and in 1806 Deacon John McLouth erected a log 
building. In 1812 or 13, the stone meeting house was erected. 
Rev. Anson Shay organized the church, and remained its pastor 
for 25 years ; he emigrated to Michigan, where he died in 1845. 
The Methodists had a society organization as early as 1800, hold- 
ing their primitive meetings in school and private houses. 

" St. John's Church, Farmington," (Episcopal, at Sulphur Springs.) 
was organized by the Rev. Devenport Phelps, in 1807. The offi- 
cers were : — John Shekels, Samuel Shekels, wardens ; Darius 
Seager, William Warner, George Wilson, Archibald A. Seal, Davis 
Williams, Thomas Edmonston, Alexander Howard, William Pow- 
ell, f 



GOLD -BIBLE — MOKMOXISM. 



As we are now at the home of the Smith family — in sight of " Mormon 
Hill" — a brief pioneer history will be looked for, of the strange, and singularly 
successful religious sect — the Mormons ; and brief it must be, merely starting- 
it in its career, and leaving to their especial historian to trace them to Kirtland, 
Nauvoo, Beaver Island, and Utah, or the Salt Lake. 

Joseph Smith, the father of the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., was fi'om the 
Merrimack river, N. H. He first settled in or near Palmyra village, but as 



* Mr. Redfield has preserved bis store bill. It is made out and signed by Henry 
B. Gibson, the well known Canandaigua Banker, who was the book keeper in Sher- 
man's store. 

t A brother of the early Hotel keeper at Geneva, The two brothers had erected a 
public house at the Spiings, and William was the landlord. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 213 

early as l^^L's\'as the occupant of some new land on " Stafford street" in tlie 
town of Manchester, near the Hne of Pahiiyra.* " Mormon Hill " is near the 
plank road about half way between the villages of Palmyra and Manchester. 
The elder Smith had been a Universalist, and subsequently a Methodist ; was 
a good deal of a smatterer in Scriptural knowledge: but the seed of revela- 
tion was sown on weak ground ; he was a great babbler, credulous, not espe- 
cially industrious, a money digger, prone to the marvellous ; and withal, a lit- 
tle given to difficulties with neighbors, and petty law-suits. Not a very pro- 
pitious account of the fether of a Prophet, — the founder of a state; but there 
was a " woman in the case." However i^resent, in matters of good or evil ! — 
In the garden of Eden, in the siege of Tro}', on the field of Orleans,! in the 
dawning of the Reformation, in the Palace of St. Petersbui-gh, and Kremlin 
of Moscow, in England's history, and Spain's proudest era; and here upon 
this continent, in the persons of Ann Lee, Jemima Wilkinson, and as we are 
about to add, Mrs. Joseph Smith ! A mother's influences ; in the world's 
history, in the history of men, how distinct is the impress! — In heroes, in 
statesmen, in poets, in all of good or bad aspirations, or distinctions, that 
single men out from the maas, and give them notoriety ; how often, almost in- 
variably, are we led back to the influences of a mother, to find the germ that 
has sprouted in the oftspring. 

The reader will excuse this interruption of narrative, and be told that Mrs. 
Smith was a woman of strong uncultivated intellect; artful and cunning; im- 
bued with an illy regulated religious enthusiasm. The inci{iient hints, the 
first givings out that a Prophet was to spring from her humble household, 
came from her ; and when matters were maturing for denouement, she gave 
out that such and such ones — always fixing upon those who had both money 
and ci-edulity — were to be instruments in some great work of new revelation. 
The old man was rather her faithful co-worker, or executive exponent. Their 
son, AJvii^. was originally intended, or designated, by fireside consultations, 
and solemn and mysterious out door hints, as the forth coming Prophet. The 
mothei- and the father said he was the chosen one ; but Ahah, however spir- 
itual he may have been, had a carnal apjietite ; eat too many green turnips, 
sickened and died. Thus the world lost a Prophet, and Mormonisin a leader; 
the designs impiously and wickedly attributed to Providence, defeated ; and ■ 
all in consequence of a surfeit of raw turnips. Who will talk of the cackling 
geese of Rome, or any other small and innocent causes of mighty events, af- 
ter this ? The mantle of the Prophet which Mrs. and Mr. Joseph Smith and 
one Oliver Cowdery, had wove of themselves — every thi'ead of it — fell upon 
their next eldest sou, Joseph Smith, Jr. 

And a most unpromising recipient of such a trust, was this same Joseph 
Smith, Jr., afterwards, "Jo. Smith." He was lounging, idle; (not to say 
vicious,) and possessed of less than ordinary intellect. The author's own re- 
collections of him are distinct ones. He used to come into the Aillage of 
Palmyr-a witli htde jags of wood, from his backwoods home ; sometimes pat- 
ronizing a Aallage gi'ocery too freely ; sometinies find an odd job to do about 

* Here the author remembers to have first seen the family, in the winter of 19, '20, 
in a rude log house, with but a small spot imderbrashed around it. 

t France. 



214 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

the store of Seymour Scovcll; and once a week he would stroll i^ottjie office 
of the old Palmyra Register, for his father's paper. How impious, in us young 
" dare Devils''' * to once and a while blacken the face of the then meddling 
inquisitive lounger — but afterwards Prophet, with the old fashioned balls, 
when he used to put himself in the way of the woi-king of the old fashioned 
Ramage press ! The editor of the Cultivator, at Albany — esteemed as he 
may justly consider himself, for his subsequent enterprize and usefulness, may 
think of it, with contrition and repentance ; that he once helped, thus to dis- 
figure the face of a Prophet, and remotel}', the founder of a State. 

But Joseph had a little ambition; and some veiy laudable aspirations; the 
mother's intellect occasionally shone out in him feebly, especially when he 
used to help us solve some ])Ortentous questions of moral or political ethics, 
in our ju^•enile debating club, which we moved down to the old red school 
house on Durfee street, to get rid of the aimoyance of critics that used to drop 
in upon us in the village ; and subsequently, after catching a spark of Metho- 
dism in the camp meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road, he 
was a very passable exhorter in e\ening meetings. 

Legends of hidden treasm-e, had long designated Moimon Hill as the de- 
pository. Old Joseph had dug there, and young Joseph had not only heard 
his father and mother relate the marvelous tales of buried wealth, but had ac- 
companied his father in the midnight delvings, and incantatiotis of the spirits 
that guarded it. 

If a buried revelation was to be exhumed, how natural was it that the Smith 
family, with their credulity, and their assumed pi-esontiment that a Prophet 
was to come from their household, should be connected with it; and that 
Mormon Hill was the place where it would be found. 

It is believed by those who were best acquainted with tlie Smith family, 
and most conversant with all the Gold Bible movements, that there is no 
foundation for the statement that their original' manuscript was wrj^ten by a 
Mr. Spaulding, of Ohio. A supplement to the Gold Bitile, " The Book of 
Commandments" in all probability, was written by Rigdon, and he may have 
been aided by Spaidding's manuscripts ; but the book itself is without doubt, 
a production of the Smith family, aided by Oliver Cowdery, wlio wiis a school 
teacher on Staftbrd street, an intimate of the Smith family, and identified 
with the whole matter. The production as all will conclude, ■^'ho have read 
it, or even given it a cursory review, is not that of an educated man or wo- 
man. The bunghng attempt to counterfeit the style of the Scriptures ; the 
intermixture of modern phraseology ; theignorance of chronology and geogra- 
phy ; its utter crudeness and baldness, as a whole, stamp its character, and 
clearly exhibits its vulgar origin. It is a strange medley of scriptures, romanc^, 
and bad composition. 

The primitive designs of Mrs. Smith, her husband, Jo and Cowdery, Avas 
money-making ; blended mth which perhaps, was a desire for notoriety, to be 
obtained by a cheat and a fraud. The idea of being the foundei-s of a new sect, 
was an after thought, in which, they were aided by others. 



* To Roften the use of such an expression, the reader should be reminded that ap- 
prentices in printing offices have since the days of Faust and Gottenberg, been thus 
called, and sometimes it was not inappropriate. 



PHELPS AXD GOEHAM's PUPwCHASE. 215 

The projectors of the humhiig, being destitute of means for carrying out 
their plans, a ^^ctim was selected to obnate that difficulty. Martin Harris, 
was a farmer of Palmyra, the owner of a good farm, and an honest worthy 
citizen ; but especially given to religious enthusiasm, new creeds, the more 
extravagant the better; a monomaniac, in fact. Joseph Smith upon whom 
the mantle of prophecy had Mien after the sad fate of Alva^^ began to make 
demonstrations. He informed Harris of the great disco\'ery, and that it had 
been revealed to him, that he (Harris,) was a chosen instrument to aid in the 
great work of surprising the world with a new revelation. They had hit up- 
on the right man. He mortgaged his fine farm to pay for printing the book, 
assumed a gra\'e, mysterious,, and unearthly deportment, and made here and 
there among liis acquaintances solemn annunciations of the great event that 
was transpiring. His version of the discovery, as communicated to him by 
the Prophet Joseph himself, is well remembered by several respectable citi- 
zens of Palmyra, to whom he made early disclosures. It was in substance, as 
follows : 

The Propliet Joseph, was directed by an angel w'hei'c to find, by excava- 
tion, at the place afterwards called Mormon Hill, the gold ])lates; and was 
compelled by the angel, much against his will, to be the interpreter of the sa- 
cred record they contained, and publish it to the world. That the plates 
contained a record of the ancient inhabitants of this country, " engraved by 
Mormon, the son of Nephi." That on the top of the box containing the plates, 
" a pair of large spectacles were found, the stones or glass set in which were 
opaque to all but the Prophet," that " these belonged to Mormon, the engra- 
ver of the plates, and without them, the plates could not be read." Harris as- 
sumed, that liimself and Cowdery were the chosen amanuenses, and that the 
Prophet Joseph, curtained from the world and them, with his spectacles, read 
fi-om the gold plates what they committed to papier. Harris exhibited to an 
informant of the author, the manuscript title page. On it were drawn, rudely 
and bunglingly, concenti'ic circles, between above and below wliich were char- 
acters, with little resemblance to letters ; apparently a miserable imitation of 
hieroglyphics, the writer may have somewhere seen. To guard against pro- 
fane curiosity, the Prophet had given out that no one but himself, not even 
his chosen co-operators, must be permitted to see them, on pain of instant 
death. Harris had never seen the plates, but the glowing account of their 
massive richness excited other than spiritual hopes, and he upon one occasion, 
got a village silver-smith to help him estimate their value ; taking as a basis, 
the Prophet's account of their dimensions. It was a blending of the spiritual 
and utilitarian, that threw a sliadow of doubt upon Martin's sincerity. This, 
and some anticipations he indulged in, as to the profits that would arise from 
the sale of the Gold Bible, made it then, as it is now, a mooted question, 
whether he was altogether a dupe. 

The wife of Han-is was a rank infidel and heretic, touching the whole thing, 
and deci<]edly opposed to her husband's participation in it. With sacriligious 
hands, she seized over an hundred of the manuscript pages of the new reve- 
lation, and burned or secreted them. It was agreed by the Smith family, 
Cowdery and Hairis, not to transcribe these again, but to let so much of the 
new revelation drop out, as the " evil spirit would get up a story that the 
second translation did not agree with the first." A very ingenious method, 
surely, of guarding against the possibility that Mrs. Harris had preserved the 



216 PHELPS AND GOKHAIil's PUECHASE. 

manuscript ^vitli which they might be confrouted, should they attempt an im- 
itation of their own miserable patchwork. 

The Prophet did not get his lesson well upon the start, or the household of 
impostors were in the fault. After he had told his story, in his absence, the 
rest of the family made a new version of it to one of their neighbors. They 
shewed him such a pebble as may any day be picked up on the shore of 
Lake Ontario — the common horn blend — carefully wrapped in cotton, and 
kept in a mysterious box. They said it was by looking at this stone, in a 
iiat, the light excluded, that Joseph discovered the plates. This it will be ob- 
served, differs materially from Joseph's story of the angel. It was the same 
stone the Smiths' had used in money digging, and in some pretended discov- 
eries of stolen property. 

Long before the Gold Bible demonstration, the Smith family had with some 
sinister object in view, whispered another fraud in the ears of the credulous. 
They pretended that in digging for money, at Momion Hill, they came across "a 
chest, three by two feet in size, covered with a dark colored stone. In the 
centre of the stone was a white spot about the size of a sixpence. Enlarg- 
ing, the spot increased to the size of a twenty four pound shot and then explo- 
ded with a terrible noise. The chest vanished and all was utter darkness. " 

It may be safely presumed that in no other instance have Prophets and the 
chosen and designated of angels, been quite as calculating and worldly as were 
those of Stafford street, Mormon Hill, and Palmyra. The only business con- 
tract — veritable instrument in writing, that was ever executed by spiritual 
agents, has been preserved, and should be among the archives of the new 
state of Utah. It is signed by the Prophet Joseph himself, and witnessed 
by Oliver Oowder}-, and secures to Martin Harris, one half of the proceeds of 
the sale of tlie Gold Bible until he was fully reimbursed in the sum of $2,500, 
the cost of pi-inting. 

The after thought that has been alluded to ; the enlarging of onginal in- 
tentions ; was at the suggestion of Sidney Rigdon, of Ohio, who made his 
appearance, and blended himself with the poorly devised scheme of impos- 
ture about the time the book was issued from the press. He unworthily bore 
the title of a Baptist elder, but had by some previous freak, if the author is 
rightly informed, forfeited liis standing with that respectable religious denom- 
ination. Designing, ambitious, and dishonest, imder the semblance of sanc- 
tity and assumed spirituality, he was just the man for the uses of the Smith 
household and their half dupe and half designing abettors ; antl they were 
just the fit instruments he desired. He became at once the Hamlet, or more 
appropriately perhaps, the Mawworm of the play. Like the veiled Prophet 
Mokanna, he may be su]>posed thus to have soliloquised : — 

" Ye too, believers of incredible creeds, 
Wliose faith enshrines the monsters which it breeds ; 
Who bolder, even than Nimrod, think to rise 
By nonsense heaped on nonsense to the skies ; 
Ye shall have miracles, aye, sound ones too. 
Seen, heard, attested, every thing but true. 
Your preaching zealots, too inspired to seek 
One gi-ace of meaning for the tilings they speak; 
Yom- martyrs ready to shed out their blood 



PHELPS AKD GORHAM's PURCHASE. 217 

For truths too heavenly to be understood ;" 

# * # » 

" They sliall hare mysteries — aye, precious stuff 
Por knaves to thrive by — mysteries enough ; 
Dark tangled doctrines, dark as fraud can weave, 
"Which simple votaries shall on trust receive, 
While craftier feign belief, 'till they believe." 

Under the auspices of Rigdon, a new sect, the Mormons, was projected, 
prophecies fell thick and fast from the hps of Joseph ; old Mrs. Smith as.sum- 
ed all the airs of the mother of a Prophet ; that particular family of 
Smiths were singled out and became e.\alted above all their legion of name- 
sakes. The bald, clumsy cheat, found here and there an enthusiast, a mo- 
nomaniac or a knave, in and around its primitive locality, to help it upon its 
start ; and soon, like another scheme of imposture, (that had a little of dig- 
nity and plausibility in it,) it had its Hegira, or flight, to Kirtland; then to 
Nau\'0 ; then to a short resting place in Missouri — and then on over the 
Rocky Mountains to Utah, or the Salt Lake. Banks, printing offices, tem- 
ple-s, cities, and finally a State, have arisen under its auspices. Conveils have 
multiplied to tens of thousands. In several of the countries of Europe there 
are preacheivs and organized sects of Mormons ; believers in the divine mission 
of Joseph Smith &: Co. 

And here the subject must be dismissed. If it has been treated hghtly — 
with a seeming levity — it is because it will admit of no, other treatment. 
There is no dignity about the whole thing ; nothing to entitle it to mild 
treatment. It deserves none of the charity extended to ordinary relioious 
fanatacism, for knavery and fraud has been with it incipiently and progress- 
ively. It has not even the poor merit of ingenuity. Its success is a slur unon 
the agft. Fanaticism promoted it at first ; then ill advised persecution ; 
then the designs of demagogues who wished to command the suflrages of 
its followers ; until finally an American Congress has abetted the fraud and 
imposition by its acts, and we are to have a state of our proud Union — 
in this boasted era of light and knowledge — the very name of Avhich will 
sanction and dignify the fraud and falsehood of Mormon Hill, the gold plates, 
and the spurious revelation. This n)uch, at least, might liave been ' omitted 
out of decent respect to the moral and religious sense of the people of tha 
old states. 



FARMINGTON. 



Township No. 11, R. 3, (now Far.mington,) was the first sale of 
Phelps and Gorham. The purchasers were: — Nathan Comstock, 
Benjamin Russell, Abraham Lapham, Edmund Jenks, Jeremiah 
Brown, Ephraim Fish, Nathan Herendeen, Nathan Aldrich, Ste- 
phen Smith, Benjamin Rickenson, William Baker and Dr. Daniel 
Brown. The deed was given to Nathan Comstock, and Beniamin 
14 



218 PHELPS A2?D GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

Russell ; all except Russell, Jenks, J. Brown, Fish, Rickenson, Ba- 
ker and Smith, became residents upon the purchase. In 1789, Na- 
than Comstock, with two sons, Otis and Darius, and Robert Hatha- 
way, came from Adams, Berkshire county, Mass. ; a part of them by 
the"' water route, landing at Geneva, with their provisions, and a 
part by land with a hoi^se and some cattle. When the overland 
party had an'ived within 15 miles of Seneca Lake, they had the ad- 
dition of a calf to their small stock, which Otis Comstock carried 
on his back, that distance. They arrived upon the new purchase, 
built a cabin, cleared four acres of ground, and sowed it to wheat. 
Their horse died, and they were obliged to make a pack horse of 
Darius, who went once a week through the woods to Geneva, where 
he purchased provisions and carried them on his back, twenty miles, 
to their cabin in the wilderness. Upon the approach of winter, 
the party returned to Massachusetts, leaving Otis Comstock to take 
care of the stock through the winter, with no neighbors other than 
Indians and wild beasts, nearer than Boughton Hill and Canandai- 
gua. About the same period of the advent of the Comstocks, 
Nathan Aldrich, one of the proprietors of the township, came by 
the water route, landing his provisions and seed wheat at Geneva, 
and carrying them upon his back to the new purchase ; he clear- 
ed a few ac^es of ground, sowed it to wheat and returned to Mass- 

icnusctts. 

In the month of February, 1790, Nathan Comstock and his large 
family, started from his home in Adams, accompanied by Nathan 
Aldrich and Isaac Hathaway, and were followed the day after by 
Nathan Herendecn. his son William, and his two sons-in-law, Josh- 
ua Herrington and John M'Cumber. The last party overtook the 
first at Geneva, when the whole penetrated the wilderness, making 
their own roads as they proceeded, the greater part of the distance, 
and arrived at their new homes in the wilderness, on the- 15th ot 
March. After leaving Whitestown, both parties, their women and 
children, camped out each night during their tedious journey, and 
arriving at their destination, had most of them to erect temporary 
habitations, and this at an inclement season. 

The following are the names of all who were residents of the 
new township in 1790 : — Nathan Comstock, Nathan C^omst-ock, jr., 
Otis Comstock, Darius Comstock, John Comstock, Israel Reed, 
John Russell, John Payne, Isaac Hathaway, Nathan Herendecn, 



PHELPS AISTD GOEHAm's PURCnASE. 219 

Welcome Ilerendeen, Joshua Herrington, John M'Cumber, Nathan 
Aldrich, Jacob Smith, Job Rowland, Abraham Lapham, John Ran- 
kin, Elijah Smith, Levi Smith, Annanias M'Millan, Edward Dur- 
fee, Thomas W. Larkin, Silas Lawrence, Jonathan Smith, Pardon 
Wilcox, Robert Hathawny, Jeremiah Smith. But a part of all 
these that were married had brought in their families, and most of 
them were unmarried. 

The only survivors of all the above named, are John Comstock, 
Pardon Wilcox, and Levi Smith ; to the last of whom the author 
is indebted for many of his Pioneer reminiscences of Farmington. 
Joshua Herendeen died last winter, at the advanced age of over 
90 years. 

Many of these early Pioneers were Friends, either by member- 
ship or birth right. An early discipline of that society was in effect, 
that anj of its members contemplating any important enterprise, 
and especially that of emigration; must report their intentions to 
their meeting for consideration and advisement. The rash enter- 
prise of going away off to the Genesee country, and settling down 
among savages and wild beasts, was not consistent with the°kindly 
regard entertained by the meeting for the Farmington emigrants; 
consent was refused, and they were formally disowned. When a 
committee of the Friend's Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia, amend- 
ed the Pickering treaty at Canandaigua in 1794, they vi?ited the 
Friends of Farmington, espoused their cause, interceded with the 
meeting that had disowned them in Massachusetts, which resulted 
m their restoration. A meeting was soon after organized, the first, 
and for a long period, the only one west of Un'ca. The society 
erected a meeting house in 1804. Their early local public Friend, 
or minister as he would have been called byother orders, was Caleb 
M'Cumber. He died last year at an advanced age. 

Wheat was harvested in the summer of 1790, the product of 
what was sowed by the Comstocks apd Nathan Aldrich, in the fall 
previous. Some summer crops were raised in the summer of '90. 
The stump mortar was the principal dependence for preparing 
their grain for bread. In the fal/ of 1790, Joshua Herendeen, with 
two yoke of oxen, made his way through the woods to Wilder's 
Mills in Bristol ; arriving late on Saturday night, the miller's wife 
inter[K)sed her ipsi dixit, and declared the mill should not run on 
Sunday, "if all Farmington starved." This made him a second 



220 piiELrs AND goeham's purchase. 

journey, and it was a work of days, as the first had been. During 
the same season, Welcome Herendeen, John MCumber and Jona- 
than Smith, took grain up the Canandaigua outlet and Lake to 
Wilder's Mill. They got but a part of it ground, and it being late 
in the season, a part of their grist lay over until the next season. 
Levi Smith, in 1791, then a hired man of Nathan Aldrich and 
Abraham Lapham, carried grists upon two horses to the Friend's 
Mill, in Jerusalam. 

As an example of the difficulties and hardships that attended 
emigration at that early period, it may be mentioned that in 1701, 
Jacob Smith, with his iamily, was thirty one days in making the 
journey from Adams, Mass., to Farmington. Putting family and 
household furniture on board of a boat at Schenectady, and driving 
his stock through the woods, along tlw creeks, rivers, and lakes, the 
whole arrived at Swift's Landing, beyo d which he had to make 
his road principally, as there had been little intercourse in that 
direction, from tiie settlement in Farmington. 

Nathan Herendeen himself wintered in the new settlement, his son 
Welcome returning to bring out the family, who came in February, 
'91 ; and about the same time other considerable additions were 
made to the settlement, consisting of the families of those who had 
come in the year before, and new adventurers. Brice, and Turner 
Aldrich and their families, William Cady, Uriel Smith, Benjamin 
Lapham, were among the number. A considerable number of 
them came in company, with ox and horse teams, were twenty-one 
days on the rouie, the whole camping in the woods eight nights on 
the way. 

The young reader, and others who may be unacquainted with 
Pioneer life, in passing through that now region of wealth and 
prosperity, will bs surprised to be told that the founders of many of 
those farm establishments — clusters of neat farm buildings, sur- 
rounded by flocks and herds, and broad cultivated fields — in their 
primitive advent, plodded througrh snow and mud days and weeks, 
with stinted means ; at night, vviih their families of young children, 
clearing away the snow and spreading their cots upon the ground ; 
their slumbers often interrupted by the howl of the gaunt wolf 
prowling around thdr camp-fires. L^nkss in that locality, from the 
peculiar character of its inhabitants, better ideas of right physical 
education prevails than is usual, there are daughters in those abodes 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 221 

of comfort and luxury who shrink even from the henllhful breeze 
whose mothsrs have prepared the frugal meal by the winter 
camp-fire, and kept nursery vigils where the driving storm pelted 
her and her household through their frail covering. Equally is 
physical degeneracy, the work of but one and two generations, 
marked in the sons. There are those in the Genesee country who 
would deem it a hardship to black their own boots, harness their 
own horse, or make their own fires, whose fathers and grand-fathers 
have carried provisions to their families upon their backs through 
long dreary winter woods paths. Sincerely is it to be hoped that 
mental degeneracy is not keeping pace with all this, as some ob- 
servers and theorists maintain. 

But we are losing sight of the germ of what became a prosperous 
settlement. The new comers were soon in their log cabins, dotted 
down in the forest, and making openings about them to let in the 
sun. Nathan Comstock was regarded as surveyor general of roads. 
Mounted upon his old mare, he would strike off into the woods in 
different directions where roads were needed, followed by axe-men 
and a teamster with oxen and sled. The underbrush would be cut, 
logs cut and turned out of the way, and thus the beginning of a 
road was made to be followed up gradually, by widening out to two 
and four rods, and bridging of streams, sloughs and marshes. As an 
evidence that they commenced in earnest to subdue the wilderness, 
it may be mentioned that there were considerable fields of wheat 
sown in the fall of 1790. Nathan Aldrich having raised fome 
seed wheat in that season. Welcome Herendeen worked for him 
thirteen days for two and a half bushels, sowed it, and he used to 
tell the story when he became the owner of broad wheat fields, 
remarking that he never had to buy any after that. The first set- 
tlers of Farmington, bringing with them apple seeds, and peach 
and plum pits, were early fruit growers — soon had bearing 
orchards — and for long years, the new settlers in far off neighbor- 
hoods, went there for apples, and a real luxury they were in primi- 
tive times. Farmington and Bloomfield cider, apples, and apple 
sauce, was an especial treat for many years in the backwoods of 
the Holland Purchase. Some enterprising keeper of a log tavern 
would push out when sleighing came, and bring in a load. His re- 
turn would be heralded over a wide district ; and then would fol- 
low ox sleds and horse sleigh ride, through wood's roads, rude feasts 



222 PHELPS Amy gorham's purchase. 

and frolics. The pampered appetites of the present day know 
nothing of the zest which attended these simple luxuries then. 

The first marriage in Farmington, was that of Otis Comstock to 
Huldah Freeman, at the house of Isaac Hathaway, in 1792, Dr. 
Atwater, of Canandaigua, officiating. The first birth, was that of 
Welcome Herendeen, in 1790, a son of Joshua Ilerendeen, who now 
resides in Michigan. As a specimen of this first production, it 
may be mentioned that his weight is now said to be 350 pounds. 
The first death of an adult, was that of Elijah Smith, in 1793. 

The first frame building was erected by Joseph Smith and James 
D. Fish of Canandaigua, for an asliery, on the farm of Welcome 
Herendeen. The first framed barn was built by Annanias McMil- 
lan, for Isaac Hatliaway, in 1793; and the same year, MclNlillan 
built a small framed grist mill on Ganargwa Creek, within the town- 
ship, for Jacob and Joseph Smith. Settlers have been known to 
come forty miles to this mill. The wreck of it is now standing. 
The first saw mill was built by Jacob and Joseph Smith, in 1795. 
The first physician in Farmington, was Dr. Stephen Aldridge, from 
Uxbridge, Mass. He died about fifteen years since, alter a long 
and useful career, both in his profession and as a citizen. 

Almost the whole town of Farmington was settled by emigrants 
from Adams, in that same county of Berkshire that has been so 
prolific a hive, sending out its swarms not only here, but to all our 
western States and territories. The local historian here and at 
the west, has often to query with himself as to whether there could 
be any body left in Berkshire ? It would seem that when new 
fields of enterprise were opened, new regions were to be subdued 
to the uses of civihzation, legions went out from its mountains, hills 
and valleys — not "of armed men" — but of the best of materials 
for the work that lay before them. Berkshire — a single county of 
New England — it may almost be said, has been the mother of em- 
pires. 

In the history of a wide region of unparalelled success and pros- 
perity, no where has it been so uniform as in the town of Farming- 
ton. The town was soon farmed out by the original proprietors, 
and of all the purchasers, but one failed to be a permanent citizen 
and pay for his land. The wholesome discipline and example of 
the Society of Friends preserved it from the eflects of an early 
profuse use of spirituous liquors, so destructive to early prosperity 



PIIELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 223 

in oilier localities ; while the fruits and example of their proverbial 
industry and economy, gave the town the pre-eminence that it has 
acquii'ed. 

The first town meeting of the " District of Farmington " w^as held 
at the house of Nathan Aldrich, in 1797 ; meeting was opened and 
superintended by Phineas Bates, Esq., when Jared Comstock was 
chosen Supervisor, and Isaac Hathaway town clerk. Other town 
officers: — Joseph Smith, Nathan Herendeen, Jonathan Smith, 
Otis Comstock, Asa Wilmarth, John M'Louth, Isaac Hathaway, 
Arthur Power, Sharon Booth, Joab Gillett, Gilbert Buck, Benjamin 
Peters, Job Ilowland, Welcome Herendeen, Turner Aldrich, Gid- 
eon Payne, Joshua Van Fleet, Jacob Smith. 

It was voted that SlO be paid for the scalp of each wolf killed 
in town. Fifty dollars was raised to defray the expenses of the 
Town. The meeting was adjourned to be held next year at the 
house of Nathan Herendeen. 



PHELPS. 



John Decker Robinson, from Claverack, Columbia co., and 
Nathaniel Sanborn, were among those who came to the Genesee 
country about the time of the Phelps and Gorham treaty. Mr. San- 
born was employed by Mr. Phelps to take charge of a drove of 
cattle that he intended for beef, to distribute among the Indians at 



Note. — The family of Comstocks were from Rliode Mand, and had been Pioneers 
in Berkshire before their advent to tlie (^enesce country. New England could hardly 
have sent better materials to this region ; or a family that v/ould have proved more 
useful. At the period of emigration, the old Pioneer and patroon of new settlement, 
had six gonw : — Otis, Darius, Joseph, Jared, Nathan and .lohn. Nathan was the Pio- 
neer at Lockport, having settled there in the wilderness several years before the canal 
was constructed. Joseph, Jared and Darius went there as soon as the canal was loca- 
ted, and became the proprietors of a large portion of the site of the presc^nt Upper 
Town, and the Lower Town has grown upprincipallyupon the original farm of Nathan. 
Dariuf: was a large contractor upon the Mountain Ridge, and soon after the canal was 
com})leted became a Pioneer near the present village of Adrian Michigan. A part of 
the site of the village of Adrian was upon his purchase, and his sfjn, Addison J . Com- 
stock, was a prominent founder of the village. The father died in Farmington in 1816 ; 
Joseph, in Lockport, in 1821 ; Nathan in Lockport, in 1830 ; Jared and Darius in Mich- 
igan, in 1844 and '5 ; and Otis in Farmington, in 1850. The only surWvor is Jolin, 
who was an early law student in Canandaigua, and now resides upon a farm near Ad- 
rian, Michigan. The descendants in the second and third degree are very numerous,, 
their residences being now principally in Michigan. The wife of Asa B. Smith of 
Farmington, is a daughter of Darius. The late Margaret Snell, of Union. Springs, 
was a daughter of Joseph. 



J 



224 PHELPS AOT) goeham's puechase. 

the treaty. As soon as land sales commenced, Mr. Robinson bought 
lot No. 14, T. 11, R. 1, (Phelps) on the Canandaigua outlet, in pay- 
ment for which he erected for Phelps and Gorham, (partly of logs 
and partly framed,) the building that was used as the primitive land 
office, and for the residence of the agent of Mr. Walker. In the 
spring of 1789, he put his family and goods on board a batteaux at 
Schenectady and landed them at their new home in the then wilder- 
ness. Raising a cloth tent they brought with them, the family 
were sheltered under that until a log cabin was erected. Nine days 
after their arrival, they were joined by Pierce and Elihu Granger, 
Nathaniel Sanborn and his brother-in-law, Gould, who remain- 
ed with them a few months, cleared a few acres on an adjoining lot, 
built shantees, and returned to SufTield in the fall, leaving the Rob- 
inson family to spend the winter eight miles from their nearest 
neighbor. Mr. Robinson opened a public house as soon as '93, or 4. 
His location was East Vienna ; embracing some valuable mill seats 
on Flint creek and Canandaigua outlet. He was one of the most 
enterprising of the early Pioneers. His son Harry was the first 
male child born in Phelps ; another son, Henry, H. resides in 
Lima. 

Following the lead of Robinson and the Grangers, in 1791, were, 
Thaddeus Oaks, Seth Dean, Oliver and Charles Humphrey, and 
Elias Dickinson. 

Jonathan Oaks was the primitive landlord, erecting as early as 
'94 the large framed tavern house, at Oak's Corners, about the same 
time that Mr. Williamson erected his Hotel at Geneva. It was a 
wonder in early days ; peering up in a region of log houses, it had 
an aristocratic look, and its enterprising founder was regarded as 
pushing things far beyond their time. It was the second framed 
tavern house west of Geneva, and when built, there was probably 
not half a dozen framed buildings of any kind, west of that locality. 
It was the house of the early explorers and emigrants, and its fame 
extended throughout New England. It is yet standing and occu- 
pied as a tavern in a pretty good state of preservation. Mr. Oaks 
died in 1804, leaving as his successor his son Thaddeus, who had 
married a grand-daughter of Elias Dickinson. The father dying- 
at so early a period, the name of Thaddeus Oaks is principally 
blended in the reminiscences of the later Pioneer period. He died 
in 1824 at the age of 50 years; an onl}'^ surviving son, Nathan 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 225 

OalsS, a worthy representative of his Pioneer ancestors, inherits the 
fine estate, the fruit of his grand-father and father's early enterprise. 
He is the P. M. at Oaks' Corners ; his wife, the daughter of Truman 
Herninway Esq., of Palmyra ; a sister, is the wife of Leman Hotch- 
kiss, Esq. of Vienna. 

As early as 181G, the lessees of the Oaks' stand, were Joel and 
Levi Thayer, now of Buffalo. About this period, the long celebra- 
ted Race Course, was established upon the broad sweep of level 
ground, upon the Oaks farm, which passengers may observe from 
the cars, in the rear of the church. For years, it was a famous 
gathering place for sportsmen, and amateur sportsmen ; race horses 
came to it from the south, and from Long Island and New Jersey. 
The annual gatherings there, were to western New York, in a 
measure, what the State Fairs now are to the \^hoIe State. 

Philetus Swift, a brother of John Swift, of Palmyra, was in 
Phelps as early as '9L He was an early representative of Ontario, 
in Assembly and Senate ; in anticipation of the war of 1812, hold- 
ing the rank of Col., he was ordered, v/ith a regiment of volunteers, 
to march to the Niagara Frontier, and was with his regiment at 
Black Rock, when war was declared. He died in 182G. He left 
no sons ; an only daughter by a second marriage, is wife of Alexis 
Russel, of Webster, Monroe co. 

Seth Dean, was the Pioneer upon the site of the present village 
of Vienna, building a primitive grist and saw mill, upon Flint creek. 
His mill was raised by himself and his son Isaac ; they being unable 
to procure any help. The Pioneer died in early years ; his son 
Isaac resides in Adrian, Michigan, is the father-in-law of Addison 
J. Com.stock, one of the founders of the village of Adrian. Mrs. 
Wells Whitmore, of Vienna, is a daughter of Seth Dean. Walter 
Dean, a brother of Seth, came in at a later period. He was the 
father of L. Q. C. Dean. A daughter of his married Dr. Isaac 
Smith, of Lockport, deceased, and is now the wife of David Thomas, 
of Cayuga. 

The first merchant in Phelps, was John R. Green, an English 



Note.— Mrs. Dean, it is presumed, put the first cheese to press in the Genesee coun 

try ; and -'thereby hangs a tale" — or, a bear story. 1 1 was in one of the old fashioned. 

out door presses ; a^bear came at night, and entirely devoured it, as his tiacks and tha 



empty cheese curb, bore wiiiess. 



226 riiELPS AND goriiam's purchase. 

man, located at Oaks' Corners. Leman Ilotchkiss and David Mc- 
Neil, were the first merchants in Vienna ; a firm of much enterprise, 
commanding, for a long period, the trade of a wide region. Hotch- 
kiss, was the brother of the late Judge Hotchkiss, of Lewiston. 
He died in 1822. His widow is now Mrs. Joel Stearns, of Vienna. 
Hiram, of L3^ons, and Leman B. of Vienna, are his sons. McNeil 
was the first P. M. in Phelps, appointed in 1801, he held the ofl^ice 
until his death, in 1S41. He died childless; his widow survives, a 
resident of Vienna. 

Dr. Joel Prescott, was the early physician. He was an early 
supervisor of the town, and for several years chairman of the board 
of supervisors of Ontario. He died during the war of 1812 ; a 
son of his, Imly Prescott, recently died in Geneva ; daughters be- 
came the wives ol Owen Edmonston, of Vienna, and James Dar- 
row, of Seneca county. 

Elder Solomon Goodale, was the first resident minister in Phelps ; 
preaching in school and private houses. The first organized church 
was at Oaks' Corners — Presbyterian — the officiating minister, the 
Rev. Jonathan Powell, a Welchman ; who still survives, and is 
settled over a Welch congregation in Ohio; a grand-daughter, Jane 
Reese, was a poetess, whose early effusions appeared in the Palmy- 
ra Register, in 1810, '20; a sister of hers, is Mrs. Bailey Durfee, 
of Palmyra. The cl.urch at Oaks' Corners, was the second built 
west of Seneca Lake, that of East Bloomfield the first. It was 
erected in 1801, but not finished until 1814. Having then became 
almost a wreck, by a vote of those interested, it was given in charge 
of Col. Cost, who pi-ocured subscriptions, and rented pews, the 
avails of which, more than paid for its completion. Thaddeus Oaks 
gave the ground, and i^ 1,000 dollars in addition, before it was finish- 
ed. Vienna and Oaks' Corners, were originally competitors for the 
location. 

Jonathan Melvin was in as early as '95 ; far better off than most 
Pioneers, he purchased 800 acres of land at what is known as 
"Melvin Hill." With ample means, and by extraordinary enter- 
prise, he soon had large improvements, grain, pork, and pasturage 
for new settlers. He built mills in an early day in Wolcott, where 
he was a large landholder. After accumulating a large estate, he 
endorsed, became embarrassed, and finally subsisted in his lasts 
years, upon a Revolutionary pension. He died but a few years 



PHELPS AXD goriiam's puechask 227 

since, at an advanced age.* His son, Jonathan Melvin, now resides 
upon the old homestead. 

Wells Whitmore came in with Jonathan Oaks ; married a daugh- 
ter of Seth Dean ; his son Barnet, resides in Georgia, and Mrs. 
Norton, of Vienna, is a daughter. 

John and Patrick Burnett, brothers, came in 1795 ; Patrick left 
in a few years; John became a prominent citizen. He held a 
Captain's commission in the Revolution. Wm. Burnett, his son, 
was an early supervisor, magistrate, and attained the rank of Brig. 
Gen. of militia. He Vv'as in service on the Niagara frontier in 1813, 
and commanded the volunteer force, called out to repel the British 
invaders at Sodus. He died in 1826; William Burnett, of Ann 
Arbor, is his son ; Mrs. Benjamin Hartwell, and Mrs. Bainbridge of 
Phelps, are his daughters. 

Cornelius Westfall came in '95 ; purchased 500 acres of land ; 
died in 1832. His only so-n, Jacab, a Captain of a company of 
riflemen, was killed in Queenston battle. 

Elijah Gates, came in '95 : died in 1835 : his sons Seth and Dan- 
iel, reside at the old homestead. 

Oliver Humphrey, one of the earliest, died in 1838; was a Major 
of Militia. His son Hugh Humphrey, lives at the old homestead. 
His brother Charles, who came in with him, died a few years since ; 
his son John, resides upon the homestead. 

Lodowick Vandermark, came in '94 ; erected one of the earliest 
saw mills on the outlet. He died just previous to the war of 1812 ; 
Frederick and William, of Phelps, are his sons. His brother Joseph, 
who came in with him, died in 181G. 

Deacon Jessee Warner, one of the earliest, located on site of 
village of Orleans ; was one of the founders of the churches at 
Orleans and Melvin Hill. He died in 1835; John Warner of Or- 
leans, is his son. 

Solomon Warner v/as in Geneva as early as '68. He located 
near, a- d afterwards became the purchaser of a part of the Old 
Castle tract, which he sold to Jonathan Whitney. His wife was a 
daughter of Jonathan Oaks. , He died in 1813; two of his sons 
reside in Michigan, and two at the homestead ; daughters became 

* In pa-ssiugthe Old Castle, in an early flay, he picked up an apple, and was told to 
lay it tir)wn. "You must be mean " gaid he "to begrudge a neigbor an apjjle; 1 will 
plant 100 trees next year for the public." He was as good as his word ; the trees are 
riow otanding along the road, on his old farm. 



228 rilELPS AND GOKIIAm's PURCnASE. 

the wives of Cephns Shekells, Alfred Hooker, William Jones, Rev. 
Wm. Patton. His son Luc'us, now 53 years of ag3, resides in the 
house his father built in '89, and in which he was born. 

Col. Elias Dickinson, on-s of the original purchasers of Phelps, was 
from Conway, Mass. He died in 1804, or '5. His son, Colton, 
was killed in raising the church at Oaks' Corners, in 1804 ; Samuel 
Dickinson, the eminent printer and publisher, of Boston, was a son 
of Colton Dickinson ; he was an apprentice of Elias Hull of Ge- 
neva. Another son of the old Pioneer, was the founder of the 
large mills of Vienna. He died in early years. 

Col. Elias Cost was a native of Frederick co., Maryland, a son 
of Jacob Cost; a sister of his, was the mother of Wm. Cost John- 
son. At the age of 21 years, in 1799, in company with Benjamin 
Shekel, and Abraham Simmons, he came to the Genesee country.. 
The party travelled on horseback, coming in via Mr. Williamson's 
Northumberland Road; upon 46 miles of which, there was then 
but one house; stopped at the Geneva Hotel, and continued on 
through the w'oods to Sodus, where they found Mr. Williamson, 
Jacob W. Hallett, and James Reese. The young adventurers had 
left their horses at Oaks' tavern, and arriving at the outlet, at Ly- 
ons, were ferried over upon the back of a stout backwoodsman, by 
the name of Hunn. Shekels and Simmons, bought land at the Sul- 
phur Springs. The party returned to Maryland. The next season 
Col. Cost came out and purchased land near Oaks' Corners, where 
he has resided for half a century. He is now 72 years of age • 
may almost be said to be robust in health; his mind retaining its 
vigor and elasticity ; possessing the fine social qualities, pecuHar to 
his native region. His first wife was the daughter of Capt. Shekells. *"' 
After her death he married the widow of Thaddeus Oaks, and was 
the landlord of the Oaks' stand for fourteen years. His daughters, 
the fruits of his first marriage, became the wives of Thomas John- 
son, of Maryland, and Lynham J. Beddoe, a son of John Beddoe, 
of Yates co. An unmmarried daughter whose mother was Mrs. 
Oaks, supplies the place of her mot' e , (who died recently,) in his 
hospitable mansion. Col. Cost was upon the frontier in the war of 
1812, a volunteer, with the commission of Captain, in the regiment of 
Col. Micah Brooks, was at the sortie of Fort Erie ; was a member 
of Assembly from Ontario, in 1846. 

NoTK. — CoL Co6t, died in April last, wliilst txiis work was in prets. _ i 



PHELPS AND GORIIAm's PUKCHASE, 229 

Benjamin Shsksll, \vhos3 advent is mentioned in connection with 
Col. Cost, died in 1818. His son Richard resides in Hopewell ; a 
daughter, is Mrs. Stephens of Hopewell. Samuel Shekell came in 
1803 ; died in 1S2G ; his son Thomas in 1804, and opened a store 
at Clifton Springs; returning to Maryland in a few years; another 
son, Jacob M., resides near Ann Arbor, Michigan ; another, John, in 
Waterloo ; another, Cephas, in Milwaukee. His daughters became 
the wives of Col. Elias Cost, Major Wm. Howe Cuyler, Alexander 
Howard, and Andrew Dorsey, of Lyons. The Shekells were from 
Bladensburg, Maryland. 

William Hildreth was an early merchant and distiller ; was a 
Supervisor of the town, and a member of the legislature. He 
erected mills on Flint Creek, was a large farmer, and in al!, a man 
of extraordinary enterprise, carrying on for many years an exten- 
sive business. He died in 1838 ; his widow survives. His sons, 
William and Spencer, reside in Vienna. 

Eleazor, Cephas and Joseph Hawks, were early settlers in Vienna. 
Cephas Hawks, just previous to the war, erected a large woolen 
factory at White Springs, on the Nicholas (now Mrs. Lee's) farm, 
near Geneva ; bought the fine wool of the Wadsworths; sold cloth 
at from $5 to 612 per yard ; made money rapidly ; but low prices 
and consequent failure succeeded after the war. He emigrated to 
Michigan. Benjamin F. Hiwks, of Vienna, is a son of Eleazor, 

Luther Root was the first clothier in Phelps ; he died 25 years 
since ; his widow and sons are residents of Vienna. 

The town of Phelps was first the " Fistrict of Sullivan ;" the 
first town meeting was held at the house of Jonathan Oaks, in 1796. 
Jonathan Oaks was chosen Supei visor, Solomon Goodale, Town 
Clerk. Other town officers : — Joel Prescott, Philetus Swift, Pierce 
Granger, Cornelius Westfall, Abraham F. Spurr, Chas. Humphrey, 
Elijah Gates, Augustus Dickinson, John Patton, Wells Whitmore, 
Jonathan Melvin, Oliver Humphrey, Patrick Burnett, Jesse Warner, 
Oliver Humphrey, Philetus Swift, Augustus Dickinson, Joel Prescott, 
Oliver Humphrey, Solomon Goodale. 

A "gratuity of four pounds" was voted for "every wolf's head 
that shall be killed in th.is district by an inhabitant thereof." 

At a court of special sessions of Ontario county, in June, 17D6, 
name was changed to '' Dist ict of Phelps." 

In February, 1797, a special town n)eeting was called " for tha 



230 PHELPS AND GOR^Am's PURCHASE. 

purpose of establishing some regulations in reference to schools." 
After the town had assumed his name, Mr. Phelps gave an enter- 
tainment at Oaks' Tavern, and a jovial time the backwoodsmen 
had of it, as but few of them live to recollect. 



GENEVA. 



While the Pioneer events we have been recording, were going 
on in other localities, the little village of Kanadesaga, at the foot of 
Seneca Lake, had been going a head under the auspices of Reed 
and Ryckman, and the Lessees. In the compromise with Phelps 
and Gorham, the Lessees had come in possession of townships G, 7, 
and 8, in the 1st Range, and 9 in the 2d. These townships were 
deeded to the Lessees under the name of the " New York Com- 
pany ;" and a fifth township (No. 9 in the 1st,) was deeded to 
"Benton and Livingston." * "In the fall of 1788," says a manu- 
script in the author's possession, " number 8 was divided into lots, 
and balloted for at Geneva ; Benjamin Barton, sen., at that time 
being agent for the Niagara (or Canada) Company, drew the num- 
ber of lots assigned to them ; and Messrs. Benton and Birdsall, 
being present, drew for themselves and associates." f 

In the fall of 1788, about the time that the Pioneer movements 
were making at Canandaigua, Geneva had become a pretty brisk 
place ; the focus of speculators, explorers, the Lessee Company and 
their agents ; and the principal seat of the Indian trade for a- wide 
region. Horatio Jones was living in a log house covered with 
bark, on the bank of the Lake, and had a small stock of goods for 
the Indian trade ; Asa Ransom (the afterwards Pioneer at Buffalo 



* But the four townships were inchided in the compromise. Benton and Livingston 
wore prominent amoiii^ the. Lessees ; and either acquired the fifth township by jiur- 
chase, or it was a bonus to tlicni individually, for their agency in elFectiug the coirw- 
promise. 

t The author lias in his possession the oii'nnal draft of this lottery scheme, with the 
names of all whodrew lots — over nn hun(ircd — and the numbers of the lots they 
severally drew. The lots are said to be in th'i "town of Geneva and county tJiereof." 
Either the village of Geneva tl.at had been laid out by Reed and Uyckman was 
merged with the lands c f the Lessees, or they laid out a village upon the Lake 
shore, opposite T. 8, as caih shareholder drew a "town lot," and a "large lot," which 
evidently meant a village lot ; nd a farm h)t. Lots wei-e drawn in the name of 
"Street cfe Co.." " Samuel Street," "Street and B i ler," "John Butler," and by all 
the members of the New York and Canada joint Lessee Companies. 



PURCHASE. 231 

and Ransom's Grove,) occupied a hut, and was manufacturing 
Indian trinkets ; Lark Jennings had a log tavern on the bank of 
the Lake ; the Lessee Company had a framed tavern and trading 
estabhshment, covered vi^ith bark, on the Lake shore, "near where 
the bluff approaches the Lake," which was occupied by Dr. Ben- 
ton. There was a cluster of log houses all along on the low ground 
aear the Lake shore. The geographical designations were " hill 
and bott»m." Peter Ryckman and Peter Bortle were residing 
there, and several others whose names are not recollected. Col. 
•Seth Reed was residing at the Old Castle. Dominick Debartzch, 
an Indian trader from Montreal, was rather the great man of the 
country. His principal seat was the Cashong farm, which he 
claimed as an Indian grant, and where he had a trading establish- 
ment ; though his trade extended to the western Indians, among 
whom he went after selling his claim to the Cashong farm to the 
late Major Benj. Barton, of Lewiston.* 

The Lessees were then strenuously claiming all of the lands of 
ihe six nations up to the old pre-emption line. A letter from one 
of the company at Geneva, to one of the Canada associates, dated 
in Nov. '88, speaks confidently of a compromise with the State, " by 
which we shall be enabled to hold a part, if not the whole of the lands 
contained in our lease." To further this object, it is proposed that 
the Canada influence shall be brought to bear upon the Indians ; and 
that a strong delegation of the chiefs shall be at Albany when the 
legislature meets, and '• remonstrate openly to the sovereignty of the 
State, against the late proceedings at Fort Stanwix, and demand the 
restitution of their lands."t In April and May, 1789, the New 
York company held out to their Canada associates, the strongest 
assurances of being enabled with their assistance, to induce the In- 
lians to abide by the Lease, instead of their cessions to the State ; 
but in the fall of that year, they began to be disposed to take what- 
ever they could get. In September, one of the auditors of the " New 



* John H. Jones witnessed the confii-mation of this bargain. Major Barton, in part 
payment, pulled off his overcoat, and gave it to Debartzch. It has heretofore been 
said that the purchase was made of Poudry. Mr. Jones corrects this, and says that 
Poudry at the time was a servant of Debartzch, occasionally asssisting him in the 
Indian trade. Both gloried in native wives. 

i In the month of September preceding, tie Onondagas had, at a treaty at Fort 
Stanwix, ceded their lands U> the State; and in the same month, the Oneidas had 
ceded theirs. 



232 PHELPS AND GORIIAM's PUKCIIASE. 

York Genesee Cornpnny," writing to tiie " Niagara Ganesee Com- 
pany," says : — " Our business has fallen much short of our first idea;" 
and after asking their concurrence in a proposed compromise with 
the State, the letter closes with, " I am, with due respect, but like 
the rest of the company at this time, somewhat dejected, your very 
humble servant." 

All that was done at Geneva previous to the spring of 1793, was 
under the auspices of Reed and Ryckman and the Lessees. The 
little backwoods village th^t had grown up there, the scattered set- 
tlements in the Lessee towns and upon the Gore, and at Jerusalem, 
constituted a majority perhaps of all the population west of Seneca 
Lake. " The district of Seneca," which, so far as organization was 
concerned, embraced all the region north to Lake Ontario, and the 
Lessee towns, had its first town meeting in April, 1793. It was held 
at the house of Joshua Fairbanks, who still survives, a resident of 
Lewiston, Niagara county. Ezra Patterson was chosen Supervisor, 
Thomas Sisson, Town Clerk. Oth.;n- town officers, Oliver Whit- 
more, Jas. Rice, Phineas Pierce, Patrick Burnett, Samuel Wheedon, 
Peter Bortle, Jr., Sanford Williams, Jonathan Oaks, David Smith, 
Benjamin Tutllo, Wni. Smith, Jr., David Benton, Benj. Dixon, 
Amos Jenks, John Reed, Caleb Culver, Charles Harris, Stephen 
"Sisson, W. Whitmore, Joseph Kilbourn, Seba Squires. 

In 1794, Ambrose Hull was Supervisor. Store and tavern licen- 
ses were granted to Graham S. Scott, Thomas Sergeants, Joseph 
Annin, Hewson & Co. 1795, Timothy Allen was Supervisor, and 
Samuel Colt, Town Clerk ; town meeting was held at the house of 
Ezra Patterson, who was chosen Supervisor of the town for several 
successive years. In 1800, the number of persons assessed to work 
on the highways in the town of Seneca, was 290. 

Mr. Williamson turned his attention to Geneva, in the spring of 
1793 ; and as will be observed, many of the early reminiscences of 
the locality occur in connection with him. In fact, Geneva is more 
or less mingled with the earliest events of the whole region. It was 
the door or cjatewav to the Genesee country, and there our race first 
made a stand preliminary to farther advances. 

Herman H. Bogert, commenced the practice of law in Geneva, 
in 1797, being now the oldest resident member of the profession, 
except Judge Howell, in western New York. His father was Isaac 
Bogert, a captain in the Revolution, attached to the New York line ; 



PHELPS AKD GORHAm's PUECHASE. 233 

was at the siege of Fort Stanwix, and at the close of the war be- 
came a merchant in Albany. The son was preceded in his profes- 
sion at Geneva, only by Henry H. Van Rensselaer, who remained 
but a few years. 

Mr. Bogert observes, that at the period he came to Geneva, land 
speculations were at their height ; high prices were the order of the 
day ; board was S4,00 per week at the hotel ; and all things were 
going on as swimmingly as in the later years, 1836, '37. Eligible 
building lots of three-fourths of an acre-, sold for 8500 ; farming 
lands in the neighborhood, sold far 85,00 an acre, that afterwards 
brought but 82 and 83,00. Mr. Williamson had a sloop upon the 
Lake that was engaged in bringing down lumber. The mail was 
brought from Albany once in two weeks upon horseback. Mr. Wil- 
liamson's head quarters were then principally at the Geneva Hotel. 
In addition to his other enterprizes, he was actively engaged in the 
construction of tlie turnpike. 

Mr. Bogert is now 77 years of age ; his wife, the daughter of 
John Witbeck, of Red Hook, who also survives, is 73. Charles A. 
Bogert of Dresden, Yates county, is a son ; a daughter became the 
wife of Derick C. Delamater, of Columbia county ; another, of Her- 
man Ten Eyck, of Albany ; another, of Godfrey J. Grosvenor, of 
Geneva. 

Early lawyers in Geneva, other than Mr. Bogert, Pollydore B. 
Wisner, Daniel W. Lewis, Robert W. Stoddard, John Collins, Da- 
vid Hudson. Mr. Wisner was an early District Attorney. He 
died in 1814. He was from Orange county; studied law with 
Richard Varick ; at one period member of the Legislature. Mr. 
Lewis died within a few years in Buffalo, leaving no children. An 
adopted daughter of his was the wife of Stephen K. Grosvenor, and 
is now the wife of the Rev. Dr. Shelton, of Buffalo. Mr. Stoddard 
died in 1847. A son of his is a practicing lawyer in Brooklyn, and 
another son is an officer of the navy. Mr. Colhns is now a prac- 
ticing lawyer in Angelica. Mr. Hudson still survives, and contin- 
ues a resident of Geneva. Mr. Parks is yet a practicing Attorney 

Note. — Mr. Bogert, among other interesting reminiscences of early times, which 
the author has used in other connections, speaks of a marked event — a thunder storm 
in 1797. There seemed to be a meeting of two large, dense, black clouds. For two 
hours, there was peal after peal, in quick succession, of thunder ; not xmlike the re- 
ports of parks of artillery. Water spouts rose upon the Lake, column after column ; 
the atmosphere seemed on fixe ; the whole was a scene of grandeur and terror, that htis 
had few parallels. 

15 



234 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECIIASE. 

in Geneva. He studied law with Lewis and Collins, and was ad- 
mitted to practice in 1814. In the war of 1812, he was upon the 
frontier, and in the battle of Queenston, in command of a company 
of volunteers. 

The early merchants of Geneva, other than those who were loca- 
ted there under Indian and Lessee occupancy, were : Grieve and 
Moffat, Samuel Colt, Richard M. Williams, Elijah H. Gordon, 
Richard M. Bailey, Abraham Dox. Grieve & Moffatt established 
the first brewery in all this region. Mr. Grieve was in the employ 
of Mr. Williamson, in the earliest years, as it is presumed Mr. Mof- 
fat wa;:', as his name occurs in connection vvith the early move- 
ments at Sodus. Mr. Grieve was out in the war of 1812, a colonel, 
under Gen. McClure. He died in 1835. Mr. Moffat removed to 
Buffalo. Richard M, Williams became a farmer in Middlesex, On- 
tario county, (or in Yates county) where he died a few years since ; 
a son of his was lately in the Senate of this State. Mr. Colt was a 
brother of Joseph Colt, the early merchant of Canandaigua, Auburn, 
and Palmyra. He removed to New York, and on a visit to Ge- 
neva, attending the commencement at the College, he died suddenly, 
at the Hotel, in 1834. Mr. Baily is still living. He entered the 
regular army in 1812; had a staff appointment, was taken prisoner 
at the battle of Queenston ; went to Quebec in company ivith Gen. 
Scott, where he was parolled. 

Elijah H. Gordon is one of the three or four survivors of all who 
were residents of Geneva previous to 1798 ; is in his 80th year. 
His goods came in early years, from Schenectady, via the usual 
water route, costing for transportation, generally about t3 per cwt. 
Barter trade, in furs especially, constituted his principal early busi- 
ness ; potash and ginseng was added after a few j-ears. 

Mr. Gordon was a Judge of Ontario county courts in early years ; 
and the second Post Master at Geneva, succeeding Walter Grieves, 
who was the first. His two sons, John H., and Wm. W. Gordon, 
reside in Washington, Louisana. 

Dr. Adams was a physician in Geneva in the earliest years of 
settlement. Dr. John Henry and Daniel Goodwin, were the ear- 
Hest permanent physicians. Dr. Henry died in 1812. Dr. Good- 
win removed to Detroit, where he died a few years since. Stephen 
A. Goodwin, an attorney at law, in Auburn, is a son of his ; another 
son, Daniel Goodwin, is an attorney in Detroit. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 235 

A Presbyterian society was organized in Geneva, as early as 
1798. In July of that year, a meeting was held; John Fulton and 
Oliver Whitmore presided ; Oliver Whitmore, Elijah Wilder, Sep- 
timus Evans, Ezra Patterson, Samuel Latta, Wm. Smith, jr., and 
Pollydore B. Wisner, were chosen trustees. The Rev. Jedediah 
Chapman became the first settled minister, continuing as such, 
until his death in 1813. He was succeeded by the Rev. Henry 
Axtell. The society built a church in 1811. 

In 180G, " nineteen persons of full age, belonging to the Protest- 
ant Episcopal church, assembled, and there being no Rector, John 
Nicholas presided." Trinity church was organized by the election 
of the following officers : — John Nicholas and Daniel W. Lewis, 
Wardens; Samuel Shekell, John Collins, Robert S. Rose, Richard 
Hughes, Ralph T. Wood, David Nagler, Jas. Reese, Thomas Pow- 
ell, Vestrymen. 

The Rev. Davenport Phelps was the first officiating clergyman ; 
was succeeded by the Rev. Orrin Clark, who officiated for many 
years. He died in 1828. The society erected a church in 1809, 
which was removed, and its site occupied by the present Trinity 
Church, in 1845. 

Baptist and Methodist societies were organized, and churches 
erected, soon after the war of 1812, but the author has no farther 
record or information concerning them. 

Among the earliest mechanics at Geneva, were : Wm. Tappan, 
John and Abraham B. Hall, John Sweeny, Elisha Douner, Moses 
Hall, W. W. Watson, John Woods,* Lucius Cary, Jonathan Doane,t 
Foster Barnard, Richard Lazalere, Jacob and Joseph Backenstose. J. 

John Nicholas, emigrated from Virginia, and settled at Geneva 
in 1804. He was a lawyer by profession, but had retired from 
practice. He was for several terms, a member of the State Senate, 
and a Judge of the courts of Ontario. He engaged extensively in 

* Mr. Wood, was also an early landlord. 

t He erected the primative churches ; was the father of Bishop Doane of Xew Jer- 
sey, who received his primary education in Geneva. 

t They were brothers, came to Geneva in the earliest years. They wei-c the pioneer 
■ tailors of the Genesee country. Time was, when to wear a coat fi-ora their press board, 
marked the wearer as an aristocrat. Men going to Congress, or the Legislature, gen- 
erally got a coat from a "Geneva tailor," but never before election. "Generals" and 
"Colonels" sometimes indulged in such an extravagant luxury. The surviving sons of 
Jacob, are : — John Barkenstore a merchant of Geneva, and Jacob and Frederick, of 
Bloomfield. Jacob Barkenstore yet survives, a resident of Lockport. 



236 

agricultural pursuits, owning and occupying the large farm after 
wards purchased by Gideon Lee. Judge Nicholas died in 1817. 
His surviving sons are Robert C. Nicholas, Lawson Nicholas, Gavin 
L. Nicholas, John Nicholas ; a daughter became the wife of Abra- 
ham Dox, and another the wife of Dr. Leonard, of Lansingburg. 

Robert S. Rose, a brother-in-law of Judge Nicholas, emigrated 
with him from Virginia. He located upon a farm on the opposite 
side of Seneca Lake, where for many years, he was one of the 
largest farmers in western New York. Both he and Judge Nich- 
olas, were at one period extensive wool growers, and did njuch to 
promote the improvement of sheep husbandry in this region. He 
was for one or two terms, a representative in Congress. He died, 
suddenly, at Waterloo, in 1845.* His widow, who was of the 
Virginia family of Lawsons, so highly esteemed for her quiet and 
unobtrusive charities, and especially for her zealous aid to the Epis- 
copal church, whose doctrines she adorned through life, died in 
1847, or '8. The surviving sons, are: — Dr. Lawson G. Rose, of 
Geneva ; John and Henry Rose, of Jerusalem, Yates county ; 
Robert L. Rose, of Allen's Hill, Ontario county, late a representative 
in Congress, from the Ontario and Livingston district, and Charles 
Rose, of the town of Rose, Wayne county. A daughter became 
the wife of Robert C. Nicholas; another, the wife of Hopkins Sill, 



BRIEF REMINISCENCES. 



From old newspaper files, preserved by James Bogart Esq., an early and 
woi'thy conductor of the newspaper press in Ontario county, gl^ See some 
account of the early printers and editors of tlie Genesee country. 

In Bath Gazette, 1799, by an advertisement, it would seem that the "Bath 
Theatre"' was in full blast. The plays announced, are the " Mock Doctor, or 
the Dumb Lady cured." " A peep into the Seraglio." "Pit, six shillings; 
Gallery three shillings." In same papei-, Geoige M'Clure, announces that lie 

* In early life lie had entertained a presentiment of sudden death, arising from some 
disorganization in the region of the heart. Many years previous to his death he had 
assured liis family it would be sudden, as it proved to be. He had dined with some 
friends at Waterloo — at the table had spoken of his unusual good health; and in the 
act of stepping into his sleigh to return home, fell and soon expired. So abiding was 
his presentiment, that he had kept all his business aflairs prepared for such an exigen- 
cy as actually occured. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 237 

has opened a " house of entertainment," at Bath. Bath races are advertised. 

"Northumberland and Sunbury Gazette," 1792: — Charles Wilhamson 
offers for sale " 1,000,000 acres of good land in the Genesee country, at $1,00 
per acre to actual settlers." He says: — "A village called Williamsburg, 
is laid out at the junction of the Canascraga and Genesee Ili\ers, where 
there is excellent navigation for boats carrying ten tons, in the driest season." 
" The village will have the advantage of a school, church, &c." " Mechanics 
wanted, to whom village lots will be donated." "Mr. Williamson begs 
leave to inform the German settlers in Pennsylvania, that he expects to hear 
of the arrival of 400 Saxons from Gei'many, who have taken up lands in the 
Genesee country. They sailed from Hamburg in April last." * 

In "Seneca Museum," 1800, Elkanah Watson and Wm. Mynderse, adver- 
tise that they will contract the making of a turnpike from Onondaga Hollow 
to Geneva, and make payment for the same "in good land." In same paper 
it is announced that "Sloop Seneca, will sail from Geneva every Tuesday, 
wind and weather permitting, for the head of the Lake, and will generally 
return from there the Friday following. For freight or passage, apply to 
Captain on board." 

From the Geneva Gazette, April, 1806: — "Positive proof has been ob- 
tained by Joseph H. Davis, attorney general for Kentucky district, that Burr 
had formed an association for making war against Spain, invading Mexico, 
and forming a distinct empire in the western country." 



JAMES REESE. 



In all our country there are but few survivors of our Revolution- 
ary period — not one, perhaps — certainly not in our local region, 
survives, who was so familiar with its stirring events as the venera- 
ble James Reese, of Geneva, now in his 87th year. Entering the 
counting house of Willing & Morris, in Philadelphia, in the memora- 
ble year of the Declaration of Independence, he remained there until 
the close of the long struggle that ensued. Transferred from the 
commercial department of the firm to the private desk, and confi- 
dence, of one of its partners, Robert Morris, then so blended with 
and so participating in all that was transpiring, it may well be con- 
ceived that his yet vigorous mind is a rich storehouse of historical 
reminiscences. The man survives, a citizen of our own local region, 
who was a witness of the interviews that often occurred between 
Geo. Washington and Robert Morris ; when he who wielded the 



* And they proved, as the reader will see, rather the hardest case that the enterpris- 
ing founder of settlements, had upon his hands. 



238 PHELPS AND GOEHAM'S PUECIIASE. 

sword, would meet him who wielded the purse, and the two, with 
painful anxiety, surrounded by embarrassments — with an unclothed 
and unpaid army, and an empty treasury — w^ould discuss the por- 
tentuous questions, the ways and means of our nation's deliverance. 
When unpaid armies, disheartened, wore down by fatigue and pri- 
vation, would threaten dispersion and a return to their long neglect- 
ed homes ; when even their stout-hearted leader would temporarily 
yield to despondency, and almost in despair appeal to him whose 
financial expedients were seemingly exhaustless, for council and 
aid. 

The printed notes of hand that Mr. Morris issued in several 
emergencies during the Revolution, — especially those used in addi- 
tion to the sum borrowed of the French to enable Washington to 
put the army upon its march, preparatory to the battle of Yorktown, 
were filled up and afterwards cancelled by Mr. Reese. Of the 
hundreds in Mr. Morris' employment at that period, in all his com- 
mercial relations — as Superintendent of the finances, and Secre- 
tary of the Treasury — Mr. Reese alone survives. His position 
brought him in contact, and made him acquainted wnth the leaders 
of both the American and French army, and the officers of the 
Navy, of those whose memories are embalmed in a nation's heart. 
He names them with all the familiarity of recent intercourse ; but 
there are few, if any, in the long list that have not gone to their final 
rest. He is one of the few remaining links that connect the Past 
with the Present — and his is not only in reference to our national 
history, but to the Pioneer history of our local region. 

Mr. Reese's first visit to this region was as clerk or secretary to 
the commissioners for holding a treaty with the Indians, at " Big 
Tree, " commonly called the Morris' treaty. Returning to Phila- 
delphia he acquired an interest in the new region, and in 1798, he 
removed his family' to Geneva, where he has since resided, with the 
exception of one year spent in Bath, in connection with the land of- 
fice there. When Mr. Williamson came out as the Pultney agent, 
his first business was with Mr. Morris, where Mr. Reese became 
one of his earliest acquaintances in this country. On arriving here, 
he entered into his agency service, and after that, was his private 
agent until he returned to England. 

Note. — Major Reese died at Ids residence in Geneva after this portion of the work 
\7a8 prepared for the press. 



PHELPS AND GORHAlVrS PUECHASE. 239 

He was appointed cashier to the old Bank of Geneva when it 
went into operation. He was in service during the war of 1812, as 
a Deputy Quartermaster of the Northern Division of the Army ; 
and in later years he has filled the office of Bank Commissioner of 
State, and Postmaster at Geneva. 

In a work devoted to other objects, but a brief space can be spared 
for Revolutionary reminiscences — even those as full of interest as 
are those of the subject of this sketch. Speaking of Mr. Morris, he 
observes: — "His commercial transactions were immense, extend- 
ing over the greater portion of the commercial world ; and to all 
this was added the onerous task of providing for an army in the field, 
and an armed force upon the ocean. He brought all his energies 
of mind and body in requisition for the Herculean labor ; was active, 
vigilant — at times sleepless, — and all in his employ were kept in 
motion. There was no man who could have filled his place. He 
wielded an immense amount of wealth ; had an extraordinary facul- 
ty to inspire confidence ; he unloosed purse strings that no one else 
could have unloosed. Even those of the society of Friends, their 
principles forbidding an immediate or remote participaton in war 
or any of its relations, who constituted at that period a large class of 
Philadelphia capitalists, lent him money ; in one especial instance, 
$'6,000 in specie, in a pressing emergency of the army, with an in- 
junction of secrecy.* The relations between him and Washington 
during the whole of the Revolution, was one of great intimacy, con- 
fidence and friendship. There was no one individual upon whom 
the Father of his country so much relied, in all the terrible conflict 
that won our national Independence. 

As the clerk of Mr. Morris, IMr. Reese had an opportunity of 
seeing Washington under circumstances which enable him to 
speak familiarly of him. " He always," says he, " received me and 
treated me with great kindness of manner, when I had business to 
transact with him. He was mild and courteous — sedate — not 
austere." 

JMr. Reese observes that IMr. Morris' sudden reverses were in a 



* When the gallant Rochambeau was about to return to France, a deputation of 
Friends were among those who made to him congratulatory addresses : — "It is not " 
said tliey, "on account of thy military qualities thatwo make thee tliis visit — those we 
hold in little esteem ; but thou art the friend of mankind, and thy army conducts 
itself with the utmost order and discipline. It Ls this which induces us to render thee 
ou;- rc.-pocte." 



240 

(Treat measure consequent upon what he regarded as his fortunate 
investments in the Genesee country. Stimulated by his golden 
prospects here, and especially by his successful sale to Sir William 
Pultney and his associates, renowned throughout Europe as the 
fortunate American land operator, he bought of himself and with 
others, immense tracts of wild land in different States of the Union. 
Pay days came before sales could be effected ; a change from af- 
fluence, a princely fortune, to bankruptcy, attended with dignity, 
integrity, and honorable conduct, marked the close of his useful 
career. 



CHAPTER II 



SALE OF PHELPS AND GURIIAM TO ROBERT MORRIS RE-SALE TO ENG- 
LISH ASSOCIATION ADVENT OF CHARLES WILLIAMSON. 



A NAME intimately blended with the whole history of the Revo- 
lution, one to whose memory a larger debt of national gratitude is 
due than to that of any other man, (the great leader in the struggle 
always excepted,) was early and prominently identified with all this 
region. What could well furnish the material for an elaborate his- 
torical work, must here be but the brief sketch necessary to his in- 
troduction as a large proprietor of the soil of the Genesee country. 

Robert Morris was a native of Liverpool, England. While a 
youth, bis father emigrated to this country, locating in Baltimore. 
Entering into the service of the eminent merchant of Philadelphia, 
Charles Willing, as a clerk, he became the partner of his son and 
successor. At the breaking out of the Revolution, although en- 
gaged in an extensive mercantile and commercial business that de- 
manded his attention, he became at once an active partizan in the 
struggle. In 1776, he was a member of Congress from Pennsyl- 
vania, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 241 

In the previous year, soon after the battle of Trenton, General 
Washington, in a pressing emergency, had realized from him a tem- 
porary loan for the army. Again, money was wanted by the 
commander in chief, and he supplied it; the army was destitute 
of bread, and the doors of his store houses were opened for their 
relief; it was without lead for bullets, — stripping the lead fixtures 
from private dwellings for that purpose, — when the ballast of one 
of his vessels supplied the deficiency. Invested with the office of 
Secretary of an empty Treasury — becoming the financier of the 
poorest country that ever kept an army in the field, or armed ships 
upon the ocean — his own means were put in requisition, and his 
almost unbounded credit freely used. With a tact, as a financier; 
never excelled, when money must be had, he obtained it. When 
other men or bodies of men failed, he would succeed. When the 
rich bankers of Amsterdam knew no such new creation as the 
United States, or its Congress ; or, knowing them, had no confi- 
dence in their engagements, they trusted him on his private re- 
sponsibility with millions, which he used in the public service. 
And when the great struggle was drawing to a close — when a 
last and desperate blow was to be struck, and the army that was to 
do it, was in New Jersey, without pay, and destitute of comfortable 
clothing and rations,* — when even its stout hearted commander- 
in-chief was almost yielding to the embarrassments with which he 
was surrounded, and upon the point of leading his army the wrong 
way, because he could not command the means to move it where 
it should go — the active, patriotic financier hastened to his camp, 
and by assuring him that he would supply all immediate wants, en- 
couraged him to put his army in motion. The destination was 
Yorktown ; — the defeat of Cornwallis, the crowning act of the 
Revolution, was the result, f Mr. Morris died in New Jersey, in 
1806. He was eventually reimbursed by Congress for all of his 
expenditures and losses in the Revolution, though not for the sacri- 
fices of time and abstraction from his private business, that his pub- 
lic services made necessary. He was, however, eminently success- 



* " I saw that army when it passed thi-oiigh PhiladelpMa," says the venerable 
James Reese ; "and a more ragged, shoeless, and sad looking one, has seldom been 
put upon the march in the du-ection of an enemy." 

t The money in specie, that he had promised, was borrowed, and paid to the army, 
but a few day's before the attack upon Cornwallis. 



242 

ful in his commercial affairs, and at one period, was by far the 
weahhiest man in the United States ; but engaging enormously in 
land purchases — other than in this region — he became embar- 
rassed, and the country he had so well serv^ed, had the sore morti- 
fication of seeing hhn, toward the close of his useful life, the tenant 
of jail limits. * 

Mr. Morris' extended commercial affairs, had made him in a 
measure, a citizen of the world, instead of that of. the new republic. 
Such was his credit at one period, that in most of the commercial 
cities of Europe, his private notes passed from hand to hand, with 
all the confidence that would have been had in the issues of a sound 
bank. At the close of the Revolution, an immense quantity of wild 
lands were thrown into market, speculation became rife, and Mr. 
Morris entered into it upon an extensive scale. Mr. Phelps, during 
the Revolution, having been connected with the commissary depart- 
ment of the Massachusetts line, and Mr. Gorham, being a promi- 
nent merchant in Boston, Mr. Morris had made their acquaintance, 
and when they sought a purchaser for their unsold lands in the Gen- 
esee country, they applied to him. Little was known in the com- 
mercial cities of all this region, other than what had been gathered 
from maps, and from those who had accompanied Sullivan's expedi- 

IfoTE. — The Duke Liancoiirt, who made the acquaiBtance of Mr. Monis, and speaks 
of him in language of respect and esteem, mentions among his gigantic business oper- 
ations, his investments in the city of Washington. The capital was located in an era 
of speculation and inflation, and magnificent expectations were entertained in reference 
to the city that would gi-ow up around it. In company with Messrs. Nicholson and 
Greenlcaf, of Piiiladelphia, he purchased 6,000 lots at $80 per lot, with the condition 
that there sliould be built upon them 120 two story brick houses, within seven years. 
This purchase was made of commissioners; the company bought about an equal 
number of lots of original proprietors of the ground. Successful sales followed, part 
of the buildings were erected, but tlie bubble burst and added to the embanvassments 
of Mr. Morris, ruining mauv others of the large capitalists of the? United States. The 
city of "brickkilns," and "magnificent distances," as Mr. Randolph called it, abounds 
with the relics of tlic extravagant views entertained at an early period. 

The jjrivate notes that Mr. Morris issued during the Revolution, were called " Long 
Bobs,"Sand " hort Bobs ;" having reference to the drawer's name, and the periods of 
their maturity, jj:^" For a more extended biographical sketch of Robert MorrLs, see 
History of Holland Purchase. 

*An unthinking Shylock at a public watering place, during the last summer, in W. 
N. y., gave it as his sage and profound opinion, that no " worthy, deserving man," 
ever suffered by the operations of the old law, whicli imprisoned for debt ; and added 
the wish, that it could be restored. The author must here note what occurred to him 
at the time : — The man, without whose individual exertions, the Revolutionary stmg- 
gle would have been a failure ; and tlie man who projected tJie overland route of that 
great dispenser of wealth and prosperity to milUons — the Erie Canal — were victims 
of that relic of an iron age, which strangely enough had found at this late period, one 
advocate. 



PHELPS iJS^D GORHAm's PUECnASE. 243 

tion. Mr. Morris, however, sought the means of further informa- 
tion. Ebenezer (or Indian) Allan, was then located as an Indian 
trader on the Genesee River, at what is now Mount Morris, and 
was in ths habit of making yearly visits to Philadelphia for the pur- 
chase of goods. Samuel Street who resided at the Falls on the Can- 
ada side, had also visited Philadelphia. From them Mr. Morris ob- 
tained information, which induced him to accede to a proposition of 
Messrs. Phelps & Gorham. Their deed of conveyance embraces 
their entire final purchase of Massachusetts, of about two millions, 
two hundred thousand acres, excepting such towns and parts of town- 
ships as they had sold, being in all, about one million, one hundred 
thousand acres. The consideration and actual price paid by Mr. 
Morris, was thirty thousand pounds New York currency. 

At an early period after the purchase, Mr. Morris employed Maj. 
Adam Hoops to explore the country,* who reported that "in respect 
to soil, climate and advantageous navigation," it was equal to any 
portion of the United States. Measures were immediately adopted 
for the survey of such portions as was unsurveyed. The celebra- 
ted David Rittenhouse was then just perfecting some surveyor's in- 
struments, and he was employed to fit out Major Hoops' expedition. f 



Note. — Mr. Monis after he had made the purchase, wrote to his agent in London, 
that "Mr. Ebenezer Allan, the oldest settler in that country" had assured him "that 
hemp gi-ows Mke young willows, it is so rampant and strong, and that he has raised 
forty bushels of the finest -tt'heat he ever saw, and so of other articles in like abund- 
ance. He asserts that the forest trees about Philadelphia are not larger than the bran- 
ches of trees in his neighborhood." In another letter he assures liis agent that he has 
had the most flattering accounts of his Genesee purchase, from those wlio belonged to 
the Friend's settlement on Seneca Lake, that had returned to Pennsylvania on a visit 
to then- connexion. He assures him that he has from all quarters heard such favora- 
ble accounts of the country, that were he a young man, he would " pitch his tent there !" 

* Major Hoops was residing near Philadelphia. He had been in the army through- 
out the Revolution, was in Sullivan's campaign, and at one period, belonged to the 
staff of Washington ; and was one of the aids of Gen. Sullivan, in his expedition to the 
Genesee countiy. He was connected with the earliest surveys of all this region. 
When Mr. Morris afterwards, purchased all the regions west of Phelps and Gorham's 
purchase, he explored it and commenced the surveys. In 1804, he in company with 
Ebenezer F. Norton, purchased the most^ of the townslaip of Olean. They laid out 
there, the village of Hamilton, which was afterwards, changed to Olean. He was a 
bachelor ; died in Westchester, Pa., in 1835 or '6. 

t There is an anecdote connected with Mr. Rittenhouse, which is quite too good 
to be lost, and may be preserved here. When he had completed one of his asti'onomical 
instruments, in anticipation of the transit of Venus, he had invited several friends to 
be present, and enjoy a view of it Among the rest he had invited a respectable far- 
mer from the eountiy, who knew far more about raising crops, than he did about 
movements of the planets. He answered in a note, that he should be very much en- 
gaged the evening named, but if Mr. Rittenhouse would have the " tramit of Venus 
postponed for a few evenings" he would be very happy to attend. 



244 

In Mr. Morris' extensive land operations, he had agents in all the 
principal cities of Europe. His agent in London, was Wm. Tem- 
ple Franklin, a grand-son of Dr. Franklin, to whom he had given 
an inadequate idea of its real value. Just as he became fully ap- 
prized of its value, and was in active preparation to bring it into 
market for settlers, under his own auspices, he received news from 
Mr. Franklin, that he had sold it. The purchasers were an "Asso- 
ciation," consisting of Sir Wm. Pultney, John Hornby and Patrick 
Colquhoun. The first was a capatalist, and at that period occupied 
a high position as a citizen and statesman. He resided in the city of 
London. The second, had been governor of Bombay, and was a 
retired London capitalist. The third was eminent in his day, as a 
statesman and philanthropist.* The price paid for what was sup- 
posed to be about one million one hundred thousand acres, but 
which in fact amounted to almost one million two hundred thousand 
acres, was thirty five thousand pounds sterling. Mr. Morris had 
written to Mr. Franklin previous to the sale, a letter from which he 
would have inferred, that he intended advancing on the price, but 
the sale was made previous to the reception of the letter. In that 
letter he says: — "I have applications in all, for 250,000 acres of 
the Genesee lands, and they are daily increasing. This winter has 
disclosed the real character those lands deserve. Many genteel 
families are going to settle there, and as I have determined to settle 
my son there, no one can doubt the favorable opinion I entertain of 
the soil, climate and rapidity of settlement." " I consider that the 
southwestern Indian war, will eventually be of advantage to the set- 
tlements of the Genesee country." " There is now in this city a Mr. 
Jackson, who lives on the borders of Seneca Lake, who is accom- 
panied by an Indian. They assured me that before they left, while 
there was snow on the ground, every night thirty or forty families 
arrived at his place, (Friends settlement,) on their way to settle the 
lands that had been bought before my purchase." " All our pubhc 
affairs go on well. This country is rushing into wealth and impor- 

* A marble tablet erected in front of the Presbyterian cliurch in Canandaigua, to 
perpetuate his memory, has upon it an inscription which recognizes the principal 
events of liis useful life. Ho was a native of Glasgow, and died in London, in 1&20, 
aged 76 years. Few men have contributed more to the reformation of criminal laws, 
to the promotion of trade and commerce, in foundhig systems for benefitting the poor, 
and for public education, in England and Scotland, in some of his correspondence 
in the hands of the author, he mentions liaving spent some time in America j)revi- 
ous to 1790 ; as ia inferred, in some of the Southern States. 



PHELPS AOT) GOEIIAm's PURCHASE. 245 

tance faster than ever was expected by the most sanguine of the 
sanguinous." My Genesee lands are infinitely preferable to any 
American lands that can be offered in Europe." After he had 
been apprised of the sale, he wrote to Mr. Colquhoun : — "Those 
tracts which Gorham and Phelps had sold previous to my purchase, 
are settling very fast, and the first settlers are raising enough to 
supply the new comers." " I am now at New York, on my return 
from Boston, where I saw several people from the Genesee country, 
and it affords me great pleasure to reiterate the account which you 
have already had, of that fine country. On my way through Connec- 
ticut, I met Mr. Wadsworth who has settled in the Genesee country, 
with whom I had much conversation, and who I find like every 
other person who has visited the country, is in raptures with it. 
Mr. Wadsworth is extremely intelligent, and one upon whose 
veracity the utmost reliance can be placed. The reports made by 
him and others in New England, has turned the attention of all who 
think of em-igration, towards the Genesee, and every man v,rho 
pitches his tent there, adds to the value of your purchase." 

Major Hoops, prosecuted the surveys under the new proprietors, 
by an arrangement with Mr. Morris. He early discovered, what 
had been suspected, a material error in the running the Pre-emp- 
tion fine. As this is a matter which it will be necessary for the 
reader to understand, in connection with after events, it may be 
here stated, that the State of New York ceded to Massachusetts, 
all the territory west of a line to be drawn due north and south 
from the 82nd mile stone on the Pennsylvania line. Before the 
running this line, it could of course be but mere conjecture where 
it would fall, as far north from the starting point as Seneca Lake. 
Seth Reed, the afterwards founder of the settlement at Presque 
Isle, (Erie.) Pa., the grand-father of the present Charles M. Reed, 
and Peter Ryckman, both of whom had been Indian traders, ap- 
plied to the State of New York, for a remuneration for services 
rendered in some previous negotiations with the eastern portion of 
the Six Nations, and proposed to take a patent for a tract, the boun- 
daries of which should " begin at a tree on the bank of the Seneca 
Lake, and run along the bank of ihe Lake to thp south, until they 
should have 1G,000 acres between the Lake and the east bounds of 
the laud ceded to Massachusetts." Their request was acceded to, 
and a patent issued. Thus situated, they proposed to Messrs. Phelps 



246 PHELPS AUD GOEHAMS PUECHASE. 

and Gorham, to join them in running the Pre-emption Line, each 
party furnishing a surveyor. " A Captain Allen," says one authority, 
" Mr. Jenkins " says another, was selected by Reed and Ryckman, 
and Colonel Maxwell, by Phelps and Gorham. In the mean time, 
the Lessees assuming that their transactions were valid, took an in- 
terest in the matter, and as Messrs. Reed and Ryckman were both 
share holders in their company, the matter was mutually accommo- 
dated between them. The line was run, which is known as the 
" Old Pre-emption Line." Messrs. Phelps and Gorham, were 
much disappointed in the result, suspected error, or fraud, but made 
no movement for a re-survey, before they had sold to the English 
Association. Their suspicions had been at first excited by an offer 
from a prominent member of the Lessee Company, for " all the lands 
they owned east of the Une that had been run." They were so 
well assured of the fact, that in their deed to Mr. Morris, they 
specified a tract, in a gore between the line then run, and the west 
bounds of the counties of Montgomery and Tioga, those counties 
then embracing all of the military tract. 

Upon a superficial examination of the line. Major Hoops was 
convinced of its inaccuracy. Mr. Morris having in his convey- 
ance to the English purchasers, stipulated an accurate survey of all 
he conveyed, instructed Major Hoops to correct the line.* Mr. 
Ellicott with his two brothers, Joseph and Benjamin, had then just 
finished the survey of Washington citv. The transit instrument, 
for surveying by means of astronomical observations, having just 
been invented in Germany, Mr. Ellicott availed himself of it, his 
brother Benjamin superintending its construction. Upon arriving 
in this country, Mr. Elhcott was joined by the late Judge Porter, who 
was then a surveyor in the employ of Messrs. Phelps & Gorham ; 
a corps of axe-men were employed, and a vista thirty feet wide 
opened before the transit instrument, until the line had reached the 
head of Seneca Lake, when night signals were employed to run 
down and over the Lake. So much pains were taken to insure 
correctness, that the survey was never disputed, and thus the " new 
Pre-emption Line" was established as the true division line between 



* 111 a letter to Mr. Colquhoiin, Mr. Morris says: "These three brothers," (An- 
di-cw, Joseph, and Benjamin Ellicott,) "arc of the number of beings on whom nature 
sports lier favors. Thev are great inathomatieians as well as mecliaiiical geniuses, to 
which they have added much practical experience, and good moral characters." 



PHELPS ATfD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 247 

the lands of the State of New York and those that had been ceded 
to Massachusetts. In examming the old survey, Major Hoops had 
discovered the precise points of deviation to the westward. It had 
commenced soon after leaving the Pennsylvania line, gradually 
bearing off until it crossed the out-let of the Crooked Lake, where 
an abrupt offset was made, and then an inclination for a few miles, 
almost in a north-west course ; then as if fearful that it was running 
west farther than was necessary to secure a given object, the line 
was made to incline to the east, until it passed the foot of Seneca 
Lake, when it was run nearly north and south to Lake Ontario. All 
this will be observed upon any of the old maps. It will at once be 
perceived that the site of Geneva, the 16,000 acres of Reed and 
Ryckman, and the supposed interests of the Lessees, had caused mora 
than a usual variation of the surveyor's compass. Judge Porter's 
explanation is as follows : " Geneva was then a small settlement, 
beautifully situated on the Seneca Lake, rendered quite attractive 
by its lying beside an old Indian settlement, in which there was an 
orchard." * 

Tbe old pre-emption line, terminated on Lake Ontario, three 
miles west of Sodus Bay, and the new line very nearly the center 
of the head of the Bay. With the exception of the abrupt varia- 
tions that have been noticed, the old line parting from the true merid- 
ian about five miles south of the Chemung river, bears off gradually 
until it reaches the shore of Lake Ontario. The strip of land between 
the two lines was called " The Gore." In addition to the patent 
granted to Reed and Ryckman, the State had presumed the origi- 
nal survey to be correct, and made other grants, and allowed the 
location of military land warrants upon what had been made dispu- 
ted territory. We shall see what was the final disposition of the 
matter. 

After Mr. Morris had made the purchase of Phelps and Gorham, 
he had once endeavored to promote the settlement of the Genesee 
lands, entering into negotiations with individuals, and with those 
who proposed founding settlements or colonies, but he bad perfected 
nothing ; though some sales he had in progress, were consummated 

* In speakiug of this fraud, to the author, Judge Porter entirely exonerated Col. 
Maxwell, for wliom, in common with all who knew him, he entertained a liigh res- 
pect. In fact, it turned out tliat Col. Maxwell was sick and obliged to trust the lino 
to hi? associate at the time the fraud wass comiiiitted. 



248 PHELPS AOT) GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

by his successors. His plan of settlement contemplated principally 
emif^ration from Pennsylvania ; but there were formidable difficul- 
ties in the way. A wide forest separated his lands from the most 
advanced settlements of Pennsylvania, over the mountains and 
across the streams, of which no avenue had been opened ; and the 
still greater difficulty was the fear of Indian wars. The Six Na- 
tions were looked upon as but in a state of armistice, as having re- 
luctantly yielded to necesssity, and paused in their stealthy assaults ; 
but far from being reconciled, ready to again take up the tomahawk 
and scalping knife, upon their own account, if opportunity was. of- 
fered, or at the bidding of those who were yet brooding over their 
revenge behind the walls of Forts Oswego and Niagara, and in their 
Canadian retreats. The borderers of Pennsylvania had seen and felt 
too much of the horrors of Indian wars, to feel willing to place them- 
selves again in a position to be harrassed by them. News had 
reached them of Indian murders of surveyors and emigrants near 
Presque Isle, and of surveyors in this region ; of solitary cases of a 
renewal of Indian hostilities upon the Susquehannah ; and rumor 
had vastly magnified the apprehended danger. A society of Men- 
onists in Pennsylvania, had contracted with Phelps and Gorham 
for a township, and were negotiating with Mr. Morris for a larger 
purchase, to enable them to settle their sons in this country, but 
gave up the project in consequence of the fear of Indian war. Mr. 
Morris writes to Mr. Colquhoun soon after he had sold to the As- 
sociation, that " these worthy but timid people had grown afraid 
since the Indian wars at the westward had become so general as it 
is, to let their sons go out even to the townships tbey have bought, 
lest the Six Nations should become parties, and attack the Genesee 
settlements. Now as there is not the least danger of this happening, 
the Six Nations having decided already for peace, yet these timid peo- 
ple will await their own time. I will, however, announce to them that 
[ can supply them with the lands they wanted, and as I think the 
[ndian v/ar will be of short duration, there is little doubt but they 
will buy it when it is over." 

In a letter from Mr. Morris to Mr. Colquhoun, dated in June, 
1791, he gives a general statement of wild lands in the United States, 
ihen in market. Spedking of his own operations he says, he has 
50,000 acres in Otsego county, that he had bought of the State of 
^''ew York ; and he mentions that the State of New York has yet 



PHELPS AND GOEH^m's PUECIIASE. 249 

600,000 acres, but he knows of a " company who intend to buy it. 
The State asks four shillings per acre, and want cash down, the ap- 
plicants want credit, and a lower price, and as yet the land reniains 
unsold. On the Mohawk river, lands are worth from £5 to £15 
per acre, New England currency." He mentions " that in company 
with Governeur Morris," (who was then in Europe, endeavoring to 
sell lands,) " and his brother-in-law, I have a 190 thousand acres on 
the river St. Lawrence." " In Pennsylvania the lands belonging to 
the State are reduced by sales and settlement to an inconsiderable 
quantity." " The vacant lands in Virginia, from a vicious practice 
in the land office, and a more vicious practice of the surveyors, are 
rendered so precarious in title, that people are afraid to buy them, 
and therefore they are offered at 6d per acre, and no buyers." 
" Lands west of the Ohio are now out of the question, until the In- 
dian war is over; they are also too remote from any market." 
" Lands in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia may be 
cheap, but the climate is too warm for rapid settlement." 



CHARLES WILLIAMSON. 



As soon as the London Associates had completed their purchase 
of Mr. Franklin, the agent of Mr. Morris, they entered upon 
measures for the sale and settlement of what they had acquired. 
Sir Wm. Pultney, in the earlie-st years, was in a great measure a 
silent partner ; the concerns of the Genesee lands seem to have 
devolved principally upon Mr. Colquhoun. He devoted himself 
earnestly to the work ; availed himself of all the information he 
could acquire ; projected improvements ; and made himself, l)y an 
active correspondence with Mr. Morris and others, in this country, 
familiar v/ith this region. He was ambitious to make it a lucrative 
operation for himself and associates, and at the same time to make 
himself and them the founders af prosperous settlements. His 
correspondence are perfect specimens of method, and high business 

Note. — Almost sinmltaiieously with tlie sale to the English Association, Mr. Monis 

had purdiasod of Massachnsetrs what Messrs. Phelps ife Gorham had relinquished, and 

what aftei-wards constituted the Holland purchase and " Morris' reserve." His interest. 

therefore, in this region, did not cease with his sale to Sii' Wm, Pultuoy and associates 

16 



250 riEELrs and gokii^m's pukchase. 

qualifications ; exhibit great foresight and prudence ; and touching 
tiie interest of those upon whom was to devolve the hard task of 
subduing the wilderness, there is blended in all of it a spirit of phi- 
lanthropy, and fair and honest dealing, which would well justify- 
much that has been said of him on the tablet that has been raised 
to his memory in Canandaigua. And with nothing to judge from 
but his business letters, instructions to agents, &c., it is impossible to 
form any other conclusion with regard to Sir Wm. Pultney, but such 
as are creditable to him, as one whose capital had made his own 
interests and those of new settlers, mutual. 

And here, with a knowledge that the author has acquired by a 
perusal of masses of correspondence that have passed between the 
foreign land holders of most of all Western New York and their 
agents — letters written in all the confidence that would accrue from 
such a relation — he is constrained to remark, that the country 
could hardly have fallen into better hands. Both the English and 
the Dutch companies, under whose auspices, as proprietors, three 
fourths of the whole country west of Seneca Lake was settled, 
were composed of capitalists who made investments of large 
amounts of money, in the infancy of this republic, when its stabil- 
ity was by no means a settled point ; and they were satisfied with 
reasonable returns for their vast outlays ; and patient under the de- 
lays of payment, as all must concede. With reference to both 
companies, in all their correspondence with their agents, no wish or 
indication escapes them of a disposition to have the new^ settlers 
oppressed, or to have their business conducted in any other than a fair, 
honest, and liberal manner. If any wrong policy was pursued it 
was a fixing of too high prices upon land, and in that matter they 
generally were guided by the advice of their agents; but long, in 
many instances, almost interminable credits were given; and that 
enabled men to possess, and finally pay for land, who could not have 
done .so, if payment at a very low rate had been demanded in hand. 
There is not in the history of the world a better example of the 
advantages of credit than is furnished in the settlement of all this 
region. It has conferred homes and competence upon tens of 
thousands who would not have had them if pay down had been the 
order of early days. There was no considerable class of actual 
settlers when most of the Genesee country was brought into 
market that could pay down even twenty five cents per acre. The 



PHELPS AND GCRHAm's PURCHASE. 251 

present system of selling the wild lands of the United States would 
not have answered for that day, for there is now twenty settlers who 
are able to pay before working it out of the soil, where there was 
one then. 

The Association, as a first step after purchase, looked for an agent 
to manage it. The choice fell upon Charles Williamson; one who 
was destined to have his name prominently and honorably identified 
with all the earliest history of settlement and progress in Western 
New York. 

Mr. Wiliiamson was a native of Balgray, in the county of Dum- 
fries, Scotland. His father, Alexander Williamson, was the Secre- 
tary of the Earl of Hopeton. At the commencement of the Revo- 
lution, he held a captain's commission in the British service, and 
was ordered to this country with his regiment, though as it hap- 
pened without any service. The ship in which he sailed, when 
nearing our coast, was captured by a French privateer, carried into 
Newburyport, and transferred to the depot at Boston, where he re- 
mained a prisoner until the close of the war, was married and re- 
turned to Scotland. He improved his stay in the country, by col- 
lecting much information, and left it with high expectations in re- 
ference to its destinies, which were fully confirmed by the success- 
ful termination of the war of the Revolution. After makins the 
tour of the eastern continent, he returned to London, just about the 
period when the attention of capitalists in Europe was drawn 
toward the wild lands of the United States ; his opinion and infor- 
mation was much sought after. His intelligence, and fine social 
qualities attracted the attention of Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Colquhoun, 
then sheriff of Westminster, and with them he became very inti- 
mate, which was only ended by the death of the parties. Mr. 
Williamson had a strong desire to return to this country, which was 
gratified by his appointment as agent of what was at first called 
" The. Association, " and afterwards the Pultney Estate. Leaving 
London, he repaired to Scotland, and after arranging his affairs there, 
sailed for this country, accompanied by his family, and two well 
educated and intelligent Scotchmen, John Johnstone and Charles 
Cameron, who came out as his assistants. After a long voyage, the 
party arrived at Norfolk, and going to Baltimore, Mr. Williamson 
provided quarters for his family for the winter. From this city he 
Wrote to his principals that all things looked well in the new coun- 



252 puELPs AND gorham's purchase. 

try; tliat the city was so full of newly arrived emigrants that he 
found it difficult to get accommodations. Preceding his companions, 
he went to Philadelphia, made the acquaintance of Mr. Morris, and 
availed himself of his knowledge of the Genesee country, and his 
remaining interest in it, in projecting some improvements, the open- 
ing of a direct road to the purchase, and a general plan of commen- 
cing the settlements ; at the same time, after having become natural- 
ized he took from Mr. Morris deeds in his own name, his principals 
being aliens and non-residents. In a letter to Mr. Colquhoun from 
Baltimore, Mr. Williamson had foreshadowed some of his ideas of 
what should be done. He states that he had j-ust met with a gentle- 
man who had " traversed the Genesee lands in several directions ; " 
and his account corresponded with their most favorable anticipa- 
tions: — "He declares that even the worst are superior to any he 
ever saw." Mr. Williamson adds: — "These disinterested ac- 
counts, from different people, put the quality of the land in the fairest 
view. The next object then is to take some liberal and decisive 
steps to bring them to their value. Want of communications is 
the great draw back on back settlements distant from the rivers 
that run into the Adantic. Remove this difficulty and there can be 
no doubt that the gentlemen of the Association will reap an advan- 
tage fifty times their outlay ; and come to their purpose many years 
sooner. Nothing will draw the attention of the people of America 
more readily than the idea of their settling under the protection of 
an association who will take every means to render their farms con- 
venient and profitable. " In the same letter he proposes a plan for 
advancing £lO to "poor settlers to induce them to settle down on 
the worst part of the tract where wealthier people might hesitate to 
make a beginning.. 

Mr. Williamson spent the most of the winter of 1791, '2, with 
his party in Northumberland, Penn. In February, however, he 
made a flying visit to the Genesee country, going around via New 
York and Albany. He writes to Mr. Colquhoun that he passed 
through "an uninhabited wilderness of more than 100 miles before 
reaching Geneva, which consisted of a few straggling huts." 
" There is not a road within one hundred miles of the Genesee 
country, that will admit of any sort of conveyance, otherwise than 
on horseback, or on a sled, when the ground is covered with snow." 
" The price of land has, in a few instances, exceeded 2s. per acre ; 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 253 

some few farms of first-rate quality have been sold on a credit for 
4s. per acre." Returning to Baltimore, he decided upon opening a 
communication with the Genesee country from the southward. It 
was from that direction he expected his principal emigration ; and 
he looked to the Susquehannah and its branches, and Chesapeake 
Bay, as the prospective avenues of trade from all this region ; and 
to Baltiflfiore as its great emporium. To the eastward from the 
Genesee country, every thing had a discouraging look — a woods 
road through the wide wilderness that separated the region from 
the old settlement on the Mohawk, which when improved, would 
furnish but a long and expensive land carriage ; and the imperfect 
and expensive water communication afforded by the Mohawk, 
Wood Creek, Oneida Lake, Oswego, and Seneca Rivers, afforded 
the best prospects that existed in that direction. Taking care to 
excite a good deal of interest in Baltimore, by holding out the fine 
prospects for trade with the Genesee country, he returned to North- 
umberland and organized a party of road surveyors. Proceeding 
via Loyalsock, the party went up the Lycoming to the " house 
of one Kyle," who was then the farthest advanced settler. — 
Sending out the hunters to explore ahead, and return and re- 
port, the party by slow progress, camping and breaking up their 
camps, proceeded until they had located a road from what 
was then " Ross Farm," now Williamsport, to the mouth of the 
Canascraga Creek, on the Genesee river, a distance of about 
one hundred and fifty miles. * Application was made to the State 
of Pennsylvania for assistance to open the road ; but little more was 
obtained than authority to build it through that State. Measures 
were immediately commenced for opening the road. Before it 
could be opened, a ship with merchant's goods that a\Ir. Colquhoun 
had consigned to Mr. Wilhamson, arrived at Baltimore. The con- 
signee informed the consigner that there was no other way to get 
them to the Genesee country, but by " pack horses and Indian 
paths, except in freshets ;" but finally concluded to sell off the heavy 
goods at Baltimore, and send on the lighter ones via New York 
and Albanv. Before the close of 1792, Mr. Williamson had deter- 



* The route of this primitiye road, was via Blossburgh, then called " Peter's Camp," 
(from the name of a German whom Mr. WilUamson estabbshed there, with a depot 
of provisions ;) thence down the Tioga to Painted Post ; up the Canisteo to Homels- 
ville ; then to Dans^ille, and down the Canascraga to Genesee river. 



254 riEELPS AND GORHAJVl's PUECHASE. 

mined upon commencing his first settlement at the termination of 
his road on the Genesee river, and in pursuance of that decision, 
had laid out a village, which he called Williamsburg, ploughed 80 
acres of flats, and built a long row of dwellings. 

The dwellings and ploughed ground were intended for the use of 
a German colony. As " Williamsburg" and " the Germans/' 
formed a distinct feature of all this region, in an early day, some 
account of them, their advent, and after hegira, must be given 
here. It was an untoward commencement of settlement, or rather, 
of European colonization in the Genesee country. 

Soon after the Association had sent out Mr. Williamson, there 
appeared in London an itinerant picture merchant from Germany, 
by the name of Berezy. With a good deal of tact and gentlemanly 
address, he had won the confidence of Mr. Colquhoun, and prevail- 
ed upon him to let him head an expedition which contemplated the 
bringing to this country a colony of poor, industrious Saxons — • 
colonizing them, and holding them here as redemptionists.* In- 
stead of following his instructions, he went to the city of Ham- 
burgh and picked up idlers, indifferent mechanics, broken down 
gamblers and players, — in fact, just about the worst materials that 
were ever collected for the practical uses of a new settlement.! 
They consisted of about seventy famihes. From their very start, 
they began to be the source of enormous expense. Arriving at 
London, they were, after a great deal of trouble, put on board two 
chartered vessels and consigned to Robert Morris. They finally 
arrived at Northumberland just about the time that Mr. Williamson 
commenced opening the road. Axes, spades and hoes were provi- 
ded for them, and they set to work : and bad work enough they 
made of it. They had to be first taught the use of their tools, and 
were far from learning easily. An old gentleman who came over 
the road in an early day, says the trees looked as if they had been 
"gnawed down by beavers." Their labor, however, made the road 

NoTR. — On arriving at Genesee river, Mr. Williamson found that T. 8, R. 7, no'w 
Groveland, had been sold to an agent o f a Society of Menonists, in Pennsylvania, by 
Phelps and Gorham. He purchased the townships of the agent, paying the then high 
price of one dollar per acre. 

* Persons held to service to pay all expenses attending their emigi-ation and settle- 
ment. 

t They were, says the French Duke Liancourt, " of the crowd of foreigners, whom 
poverty, idleness, and necessities of every kind, induce to resort to Hamburgh with a 
view to emigration." 



PHELPS AOT) gorham's puechase. 255 

principally, to where Blossburgh now is. They were then taken 
down to Painted Post, and remained there until the spring of '93, 
when they were located at the home provided for them at Williams- 
burg. Each family had a house and fifty acres of land appro- 
priated to its use ; necessary farming tools ; a stock of provisions ; 
and there were distributed among the whole, 27 yoke of oxen, 40 
cows, 80 hogs, 300 sheep. Even their household utensils were 
provided them. Beside all this, they had their minister and 
physician. 

The city training, and idle habits of the expensive colonists, soon 
began to be exhibited. They w^ere both idle and improvident, the 
women made as bad use of the provisions that had been furnished, 
as the men of the farming implements that were put into their 
hands. An eye witness informed the author, that they fried their 
pork and then threw it away, supposing the grease only intended for 
use ; and he gave other similar specimens of their domestic econo- 
my. The whole fiddled and danced, and drank whiskey ; even the 
minister proved a bad specimen of his cloth. It soon turned out 
that most of them had been deceived. Berezy to swell his num- 
bers, and gratify his ambition to be the head of a colony, had prom- 
ised them fine times in America ; had assured them that his patrons 
being rich, they should want for not-hin-g, and as they were to be 
the founders of a city, they could each choose such employment as 
was best suited to their tastes and habits. That they were to dig 
and delve in the dirty earth, was not in the bond, according to their 
understanding. 

Mr. Williamson soon became convinced, that he had at least one 
bad job upon his hands, as the founder of new settlements. One 
stock of provisions was consumed, and another had to be supplied ; 
the fallows that had been provided for them, lay undisturbed ; the 
sheep and hogs that were intended as breeders, and the cows that 
were intended to furnish milk — all obtained at great expense and 
trouble — one after another disappeared, and were found upon the 
shambles ; the city appetites of the hopeful colonists craving occa- 
sional alternations between salted and fresh provisions. The very 
seeds that Mr. Williamson provided, instead of going into the 
ground, went into the pot. And what was w^orse perhaps than all, 
Berezy, by indulgence and other artful management, had obtain- 
ed complete control of the colonists, and set himself above Mr. 



25G riiELPS AND GOEH aim's puechase. 

Williamson, claiming to have brought his authority directly from 
head quarters in London. A store had been established at Wil- 
liamsburg, which was under the care of Mr. John Johnstone, and 
Berezy and the Germans had used its goods and provisions lavishly ; 
and besides, Berezy had contracted debts for supplies, especially 
with the Messrs. Wadsworths, assuming that he was acting for the 
Association, and not under the authority of Mr. Williamson. 

After having humored the whole matter, until some decisive 
measures became "necessary, Mr. Williamson visited his refractory 
colony, taking with him from Canandaigua, his friend Thomas Morris, 
determined to have some reform. He had a house at Williams- 
burg, then occupied by James Miller, where he kept a desk contain- 
ing all his papers that had reference to that locality ; and there he and 
his friend took up their quarters.* Sending for Berezy he had an 
interview with him, which ended by displacing him as an agent, 
and forbidding him to exercise any authority over the Germans. 
Calling the Germans together, he informed them of their new rela- 
tions, and proposed measures of further assistance to them, condi- 
tioned upon their going to work, and trying to help themselves. At 
first they were disposed to listen to his proposals, but the superior 
influence of Berezy soon prevailed, and riot and mutiny succeeded. 

Sunday intervened, and Mr. Williamson says, " Berezy and the 
minister were all day pow- wowing in every house in the settlement," 
Monday came, and Mr. Williamson found the quarters of himself 
and friends besieged. The Germans had collected in a body, and 
under the influence of Berezy were making extravagant demands 
as the terms of peace, and a continuance in the colony. Mr. Wil- 
liamson retreated into the house with his friends Morris, Johnstone, 
and several others, in all, a force vastly inferior to the refractory 
colonists. " Driven into a corner between two writing desks" says 
Mr. Williamson, " I had luckily some of my own people near me, 
who were able to keep the most savage and daring of the Germans 
ofl", though the cry was to lay hold of me. Nothing could equal 
my situation, but some of the Parisian scenes. For an hour and a 
half I was in this situation, every instant expecting to be torn to 
pieces." Berezy finding the storm he had raised, raging too vio- 

* The reader should understand that "Williamsburg, the site of this early Gcmian 
colony, is what has since been known as the " Hermitage ; " Uie present farm and res- 
idence of the Hon. Charles H. CarroU. 



PUECHASE. 251 

lently, quelled it ; but rapine took the place of personal assault. The 
cattle upon the premises were driven off, or killed to furnish a feast 
for a general carousal. The mutiny and plunder lasted for several 
days ; there being no authority or superior force to quell it. At 
one time, the physician of the colony, who had taken sides with 
Mr. Williamson became the object of the fiercest resentment. He 
was seized, and in attempting to rescue him, Messrs. Morris and 
Johnstone were assaulted and their lives placed in jeopardy ; but 
finally made their escape. 

Present in all the affray was Mr. Richard Cuyler, then actincr as 
Mr. Williamson's clerk. He was dispatched to Albany wuth a 
requisition upon Gov. George Clinton, for a force sufficient to quell 
the riot and apprehend the rioters. Berezy with a few of the Ger- 
mans, departed for Philadelphia, for the double purpose of escaping 
arrest and enlisting Mr. Robert Morris on their side. Gov. Clinton 
issued an order to Judah Colt, who had been appointed Sheriff of 
the new county of Ontario, commanding him to summon a posse 
for the arrest of the rioters. A posse equal in numbers with the 
German colonists was no easy matter at that early period of settle- 
ment. But fortunately some boat crews and new settlers, had just 
arrived at Bath. They made a forced night march through the 
woods, and joined by others, succeeded in arresting those who had 
been foremost in the riot. They were taken to Canandaigua and 
light fines imposed ; the principal object being the assertion of the 
supremacy of the laws. Unable to pay the fines, they were hired 
out to new settlers in Canandaigua and the vicinity, to earn the 
money. Their defence, was some of the eariiest practice of the 
late Gen. Vincent Matthews. 

Berezy, going from Philadelphia to New York, put the Germans 
and himself under the auspices of a German benevolent association, 
who had made arrangements with Gov. Simcoe, for settling emi- 
grants at what is now Toronto, and in the townships of Markham. 
They went down and encamped at the mouth of the Genesee river, 
and were temporarily the eariy neighbors of Wm. Hencher. When 
the boats came from Canada to take them away, a boatman was 
drowned in the river. His was the first death and funeral, after 
settlement commenced, in all of what is now Monroe county. 

Another formidable attempt at colonization from Europe, did not 
progress so far, or rather took another direction. Donald Stewart, 



258 ruELPS AND goeham's purchase. 

an enterprising Scotchman, of " Achnaun by Appin, in Argyleshire," 
soon after the purchase of the Association, had organized a colony 
in his neighborhood, the destination of which was Cumberland, N. 
Carolina. He received a proposition from Mr. Colquhoun too late 
to change their direction, the colonists having embarked and sailed. 
But following them soon, Mr. Stewart came to explore the Genesee 
country, with the intention, if suited with it, to bring his colony 
jiere. He spent several weeks traveling on horseback, with Mr. 
Williamson, got a small specimen of the ague and fever ; the new 
country in its primitive roughness, had to him a forbidding look ; he 
turned his back upon it rather in ill humor.* There were many 
other schemes of the proprietors in London, and Mr. Williamson, to 
colonize this region, none of which succeeded, except that of the 
persevering, and finally eminently successful one, at Caledonia 
Springs. And here it may well be observed, that in reference gen- 
erally to founding new settlements in the United States, the Associ- 
ates in London, and their agent here, had many impracticable views 
at first, of which they became finally convinced, by a pretty ex- 
pensive experience. 

The aetting the Northumberland road through ; the commence- 
ment of a settlement at Williamsburg, and the building of a saw 
mill on the Canascraga creek, near the present town of Ossian, oc- 
cupied the business season of 1792. Mr. Williamson himself hav- 
ing settled his family at Northumberland, was upon the move ; 
visited New York, Baltimore ; travelled in the interior of Mary- 
land and Pennsylvania, beating up for emigrants; and explored 
pretty thoroughly the whole region over which his agency extended. 

In the spring of 1793, operations were commenced at Bath.f 



* A good anecdote came of it however, •which it is .said had something to do witli 
his dislike of the country. Threading the forest on liorseback, Mr. Williamson and 
his companion •were attracted by the noise of falling water. A])proaching it, the water 
gushing from the rock, and falling over a precipice, the bod of the stream, the rocks 
and banks covered with suljihur, riveted their attention. It was a feast for the eyes, 
but not exactly agreeable to their smell. Aftergazingfora few minutes, Mr. William- 
son broke the silence by observing, that thoy had found just the place for a Highland 
colony. The reader will obsen'C, as the keerdy sensitive Highlander did, that tlie 
harmless joke had reference to a certain cutaneous infirmity. It came too from a 
Lowlander, and touched a tender cord ; called up reminiscences of ancient feuds in 
their native land ; was resented ; and is said to be one of the reasons why a large 
Highland colf)ny, was not early introduced into this region. The reader will have 
eurniiied, that the party were viewing Clifton Springs. 

t Name from the daughter of Sii' Wm. Pultney, who was Countess of Batli. 



PHELrs AND goeham's puechase 259 

Two boats with workmen, provisions &c., came up the Susquehan- 
nah to Tioga Point, where they left one boat and hah' the load of 
the other, and reached Bath April 15, 1793. Mr. Williamson ar- 
rived via Northumberland road, two days after. Some shantees 
were thrown up, a village plat surveyed, a log land office was built ; 
and during the season, about twenty other log buildings were erect- 
ed. As would be said in this later day of refinement in language, 
the Pioneers had a " distinct view of the elephant." Provisions 
failed, and they were at one time three days without food ; as they 
cleared away the forest, the fever and ague, as it was wont to do, 
walked into the opening, and the new comers were soon freezing, 
shaking, and then burning with fever, in their hastily constructed 
cabins. It was Mr. Williamson's introduction into the hardships 
and privations of the wilderness. " He would lay in his hut, with 
his feet to the fire, and when the cold chills of ague came on, call 
for some one to lie close to his back, to keep him warm." To other 
improvements during the year, at Bath, Mr. Williamson added a 
log tavern, which was opened and kept by John Metcalf Bath 
having been fixed upon as the centre of all the southern portion of 
the Associates' purchase, farther improvements were commenced. 
Mr. Williamson built a saw mill and a grist mill ; emigrants from 
Pennsylvania and Maryland, soon began to be attracted there. It 
became the permanent residence of Mr. Williamson. The Duke, 
Liancourt, who visited him in the summer of 1795, says: — "The 
habitation of the Captain consists of several small houses, formed of 
trunks of trees and joiners' work, which at present forms a very ir- 
regular whole, but which he intends soon to improve. His way of 
living is simple, neat and good ; every day we had a joint of fresh 
meat, vegetables and wine. We met with no circumstances of 
pomp or luxury, but found good ease, humor and plenty." Perhaps 
it is the fairest eulogium I can pass upon his free and easy urbanity 
to say, that all the time of our stay, he seemed as much at his ease 
as if we had not been present. He transacted all his business in 
our presence, and was actively employed the whole day long. We 
were present at his receiving persons of difiei-ent ranks and des- 
criptions, with whom the appartment he allots to business is generally 
crowded. He received them all with the same attention, civility 
and good nature. They came to him prepossessed with a certain 
confidence in him, and they never leave him dissatisfied. He is at 



2G0 PHELPS AND GOEITAm's PURCHASE. 

all times ready to converse with any who have business to transact 
with him. He will break off a conversation with his friends, or 
even get up from dinner for the sake of dispatching those who wish 
to speak to him. 

In the spring of 1794, improvements were commenced at Geneva, 
the first and principal one being the erection of the Geneva Hotel. 
It was completed in December, and opened with a grand ball, which 
furnished a memorable epoch in the eai'ly history of the Genesee 
country. The Hotel was talked of far and wide as a wonderful en- 
terprise ; and such it really was. Even now, after the lapse of fifty- 
six years, when fine hotels have arisen in all of our cities and prin- 
cipal viHages, the old Williamson Hotel, as it is often called, in its fine 
location, with its large open park in front, is ranked as one of the 
first class. Imagine how it was when it had no competitors in all 
the region west of Utica, save perhaps three or four moderate sized 
framed taverns ; when log taverns were generally the order of the 
day. It was an Astor House then ; and even this comparison falls 
short of conveying an idea of its then comparative magnitude. Mr. 
Williamson wrote to his principals, proposing such a house, and 
urged that as it would stand in the doorway or entrance to the 
Genesee country, it should bo respectable ; so designed as to make 
a favorable impression ; and urged beside, that such a house, where 
all the comforts of a good English inn could be realized, would 
invite respectable people to the country. And so perhaps it did. 
How many readers of these early reminiscences, will remember 
the house, the landlord, and all belonging to that early halting place, 
in the long and dreary journies that used to be made. Blended with it 
in memory, is the old stage coach ; chilled and drowsy with long night 
rides, over hubs or poached clay roads, there would be the smart 
crack of the driver's whip, the trundling of the wheels upon a stone 
pavement, the squaring up to the door, the getting out and stretching 
of almost torpid limbs ; the ushering in to well warmed and com- 
fortable apartments, the smell and the taste of smoking steak and 
hot coffee, and other " creature comforts," that it will not do to 
speak of now. Your modern travellers know nothing of the ex- 
tremes of pain and pleasure of the old fashioned way of traveling 
from Albany to Buffalo. For landlord to his new Hotel, Mr. Wil- 
liamson selected Thomas Powell, whom he had known in London, 
connected with the celebrated " Thatched Cottage, the resort of 



PHELPS AND GOPJIAm'b PUECHASE. 261 

statesmen, politicians and wits." * He had previously emigrated to 
this country, and opened a house at Lansingburg. 

Although Mr. Williamson's house was at Bath, a large proportion 
of his time was spent at Geneva, attending to matters connected 
with the northern division of the purchase. The company that he 
drew around him, made a very considerable business for the new 
hotel ; and it was the early home of the young men without fami- 
lies, who located at Geneva; the principal stopping place for emi- 
grants, who could afford the comforts of a good inn. Under the 
auspices of Reed and Ryckman, Joseph Annin and Benjamin Bar- 
ton had surveyed a small village plat, which was superseded under 
Mr. Williamson's auspices, by a new, enlarged survey, generally 
as now indicated, except that the new survey, Mr. WilHamson's 
plan, contemplated that the whole town should be built up fronting 
the Lake ; the space between the mam street and the Lake, was 
intended for terraced parks and gardens. In a few words, Geneva 
is now, though beautiful in all its appointments, more upon the utili- 
tarian order, than Mr. WiUiamson intended. He had seen the 
original in his travels upon the continent, and associating Seneca 
Lake with " Lake Lernan, ' had in view an imitation, in a wilder- 
ness of the new world. In reference to this as well as other of his 
projections, his ardent and sanguine temperament led him to sup- 
pose that villages and village improvements, to a considerable extent, 
could precede a general cultivation of the soil. Experience has 
shovv'n that they must follow by slow steps after it. 

The Hotel was but a part of Mr. Williamson's enterprises at 
Geneva. 

Before the State had acknowledged the correctness of the new 
pre-emption line, as in the case of the site of Geneva, and Reed 
and Ryckman, patents had been issued, covering nearly the whole 
of " the Gore," Mr. Williamson, through the agency of Mr. John 
Johnstone, having purchased all the patents, had so fortified 
the claim of his principals, that he had ventured upon exercising 
ownership ; though title was yet an open question. In March, 
1795, while a bill was pending in the legislature, providing for run- 
ning a third line, by the Surveyor General, and if the one run by 
Mr. Ellicott should prove correct, to give the associates other lands 

* Mr. Powell became an early sta^e proprietor. After keeping the Hotel for many 
years, lie removed to Schenectady, and was succeeded by bis brother, "Wm. PowelL 



2G2 PHELPS AND GORHAMS PUK CHASE. 

in lieu of those that had been pi'.tented upon the Gore ; PhilHp 
Schuyler introduced amendments, which prevailed, making it dis- 
cretionary with the Surveyor General, allowing him to waive the 
running of a new line, if he satisfied himself that Mr. Ellicott's 
line was correct; and leave it to the commissioners of the land 
office to arrange matters between the holders of patents and the as- 
sociates, or Mr. Williamson, holding as he did, by purchase, most 
of the patents, to perfect the title to "the Gore," nearly 84,000 
acres. As an equivolent for what he had paid in the purchase of 
patents, the commissioners of the land office conveyed to him about 
the same quantity of land embraced in the patents, off from the 
n^iilitary tract, in what is now Wolcott and Galen, in Wayne 
county. 

The reader will have seen that the first location of " The Friend'' 
and her followers, was upon " The Gore." Their titles were all 
confirmed by Mr. Williamson, upon terms generally satisfactory. 

Sodus was the next site chosen for the foundation of a settle- 
ment — or in fact, for the founding of a commercial village, — not 
to say city. In all Mr. Williamson's plans for settling the coun- 

NoTE. — It would seoni that, as between tlie State, the Lessees aud Mr. Williamson, 
the early colonists, for a time, hardl)^ knew Avhose hands they were to fall into. In 
January '94, however, they had concluded whose title was to be prefen-cd. They ad- 
dressed to Mr. Williamson the following letter, or petition : — 

"Jkrusalem, LSth of 1st mo., 1794. 
"Friend Williamson, — We take this opportunity to let thee know our wishes, 
who are now on thy land, at The Friend's settlement in Jerusalem, in the county of 
Ontario, and in the State of New York. We, the subscribers, wish to take deeds from 
friend Williamson for tlie land our improvements is on, rather than any other person. 
Our desires is, that tliee woidtl not dispose of the lands to any other person but to us, 
who are on the land. 

Benajah Botsford Elnathan Botsford, Philo Ingraham, 

Eleazor Ingraham, Daniel Tn2;raham, Elisha Ingraham, 

Solomon Ingraham, Richard Mattliews, Sanmel Parsons, 

Richard Smith, Elnathan Botsford, jr., Jonathan Davis, 

Abel Botsford, Asahel Stone, Elijah Malin, 

Enoch Malin, Samuel Doolittle, Thos. Hathaway, 

William Davis, John Davis, Mary Aldrich.'' 

John Briggs, Benedict Robinson, 

There are other letters from Benedict Robinson and others of the Friends, to the same 
pui-port "Friend Parker" lets " Captain WiUianison " into his family affairs, with- 
out reserve: — " It is my desire to settle tlie several branches of my family near me: 
for that reason, I began where we now are ; with the intention to buy of the right 
ownci: when I could see him. The 1,000 acres may seem too nnich for" one man , but 
when it is divided between myself, a son, and three sons-in-laws, it, I think, will not 
be deemed extravagant ; especially, considering 1 know not how soon I may have two 
mcn-e sons-in-laws. A man like myself, who was one of the first settlors in the coiui- 
try, and began onr settlement, which would have been elsewhere had it not have leen 
for me; and also encouraged many emigrants into this country, may claim to be in- 
dulged in having the several branches of his family settled neai-him." 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 263 

try, and his projections of internal improvements, laid from time to 
time before his principals, he had looked to the Conhocton, the 
Caniste, Tioga and Susquehannah rivers, as the avenues to market 
from the southern district of the Genesee purchase ; and to Balti- 
more as its commercial mart. With these views, he had founded 
Bath. * Looking to Lake Ontario, the Oswego river, Oneida Lake. 
Wood Creek, the Mohawk and the Hudson river, and the St. Law- 
rence, as avenues to the New York and Montreal markets, for the 
northern district of the purchase, he selected Sodus Bay as the 
commercial depot. 

Early in the winter of 1793, he determined upon improvements 
there, and in the spring of '94, he had roads cut out from Palmyra 
and Phelpstovvn, to get access to the spot from those points. It 
was his first appearance in the Lake Ontario region, and his pre- 
sence there, with his surveyors, road makers, builders, and all the 
retinue necessary to carry out his plans, created a new era — in- 
spired new hopes with the scattered backwoods settlers. It had 
looked before he came, as if for long years, no one would be bold 
enough to penetrate the dark, heavy forests, that in a wide belt, were 
stretched along the shores of the Lake. They entertained before 
no hopes of realizing for years, any better facilities for trans- 
portation to market, than was afforded by Ganargwa Creek.f the 
outlet of Canandaigua Lake, and Clyde river. He had preceded 
the enterprise by a written announcement of the plan of oper- 
ations : — It contemplated the survey of " a town between Salmon 
Creek and Great Sodus Bay, and a spacious street, with a large 
square in the centre, between the Falls on Salmon Creek and the 
anchorage in the Bay, and mills are to be built at the Falls on Sal- 
mon Creek." He adds : — "As the harbor of Great Sodus is ac- 
knowledged to be the finest on Lake Ontario, this town, in the con- 
venience of the mills and extensive fisheries, will command advan- 
tages unknown to the country, independent of the navigation of 



* It should be observed, that he contemplated the improvement of the navigation 
of those rivers, and projected a canal to connect the Tioga and Delaware riv'ers, in 
order to reach Philadelphia. 

tMud Creek, until recently. The old name was blended with the recollection of 
Btagnant waters, bogs, chills and fevers. When its whole aspect had been changed by 
the hand of improvement, and it became even picturesque and beautiful in its mean- 
derings through cultivated iields, and a rural scenery seldom equalled, the dwellers in 
its valley were enabled, with the lielp of Lewis Morgan, Esq , of Rochester, to come 
at its ancient Seneca name, which they adopted. 



2G4: PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

the Great Lake, and the St. Lawrence." The town was surveyed 
by Joseph Colt. The plan was as indicated above. The in-lots 
contained a quarter of an acre, and the out-lots ten acres. The 
whole was upon a scale of magnificence illy suited to that primitive 
period; and yet, perhaps, justified by then prospective events; 
and more than all, by the capacious and beautiful Bay, the best 
natural harbor upon our whole chain of Lakes, a view of which, 
even now, excites surprise that it has not, ere this, more than reali- 
zed the always sanguine expectations of Mr. Williamson. 

The in-lots in the new town, were offered for one hundred dol- 
lars ; the out-lots, for four dollars per acre ; the farming lands in 
all the neighborhood, at one dollar fifty cents per acre. Thomas 

Little and Moffat, were the local agents. A tavern house was 

erected at a cost of over $5000, and opened by Moses and Jabez 
Sill. * Mills were erected at the Falls on Salmon Creek ; a plea- 
sure boat was placed upon the Bay ; and several other improve- 
ments made. Inroads, surveys, buildings, &c., over $;20,000 was 
expended in the first two years. 

The first difficulty encountered was the ague and fever, that early 
incubus that brooded over all of Pioneer enterprise, upon the Lake 
shore. When the sickly season came, agents, mechanics and labor- 
ers, could only work upon " well days. " Mr. Williamson soon be- 
gan to realize that there was something beside the " romantic and 
beautiful, " about the " Bay of Naples " he had found hid away in 
the forests of the Genesee country. And another trouble came. 
IXIr' See British invasion of the Genesee country, at Sodus. 

Soon after Mr. Williamson had perfected his title to the Gore, 
the junction of the Canandaigua out-let and Ganargwa creek, the 
fine flats, hemmed in by hills and gentle swells of upland — the 
facilities afforded for navigation with light craft, — attracted his at- 
tention. Fancying the outlet and the creek to be miniature repre- 
sentations of the Rhone and the Sayone, and struck with a coinci- 
dence of landscapes, he bestowed upon the location the name of 
Lyons. He had been preceded here by some of the earliest Pioneers 
of the Genesee country. In May, 1789, a small colony consisting 

* Moses Sill died in Dansville, in 1849. Jabez Sill died at Wilkcsban-e, in 1844. 
The latter Avas an early proprietor at Prideaux, "Bradduck's Bay." His son, Daniel 
SiU, is tlie fortunate California adventurer from Dansville. 

1^ For some account of the Sill family, sec History of Wyoming, and Mrs. EUctt's 
" Womea of tlie Revolution." 



PHELPS AKD GOPvH Ail's PURCHASE. 265 

of twelve persons, were piloted up the Ptlohawk, and by the usual 
water route, by Wemple, the Indian trader who has been mentioned 
in connection with the Rev. Mr. Kirkland. Arriving at what was 
then the principal head of navigation, especially for batteaux of any 
considerable size, they located and erected log huts half a mile south 
of the present village of Lyons, where James Dunn lately resided. 
The heads of families, were : — Nicholas Stansell, William Stansell, 
and a brother in-law, John Featherly. They had been inured to 
hardships, toil and danger, as border settlers upon the Mohawk, and 
in Otsego county ; Wm. Stansell had been to this region in Sulli- 
van's expedition. Their nearest neighbors were Decker Robinson 
and the Oaks family ; the same season, a few families, located at 
Palmyra. The Stansell? and Featherly may be regarded as the 
Pioneers of all the northern part of Wayne county. They ground 
their corn in a small hand mill " until a German named Baer put up 
a log mill where Waterloo now is. " Jointly with the Pioneers of 
Phelps, they opened a woods road to that neighborhood and in the 
direction of the mill at Waterloo. The father of the Stansells died 
in the earliest years, and was buried in the absence of any funeral 
rites ; there being no one to conduct them. A few weeks previous 
to Wayne's victory, the early Pioneers became alarmed ; made up 
their minds they must flee, or see a second edition of the scenes 
that they had passed through upon the jMohawk ; the old batteaux 
that brought them into the wilderness was re-corked and pitched to 
take them out of it ; they were upon the point of starting, when news 
came that " Mad Anthony " had humbled the western nations, and 
smothered the flame that had threatened to break out in the Gene- 
see country. These early adventurers depended much upon the 
" products of the forest ; " not such as comes under that head in 
our modern canal statistics; but upon wild game; deer principally. 
Nicholas Stansell was a hunter, and would go out and kill from 
eight to ten deer in a day. Nicholas Stansell, a surviving son of 



Zs'oTE. — This early colony brou.^ht in -with thera some hogs, and tlie result, with 
other similar ones that will be noted, confirms the fact that our domesticated hog will 
if turned into the forest, to share it with wild animjds alone, go back to his primitive 
condition in one, or two years, at farthest. A boar, of this primitive stock changed 
in form, became a wild racer, his tusks grew to a frightful length ; he became more 
than a match for bears and wolves ; and finally a ten-or to the new settlers, until he 
was hunted and shot. The first progeny of this primitive stock when caught could 
not be tamed, and generally had to be hunted like other game. 
17 



266 PHELPS AISTD GOEHAJl's PUECnASE. 

one of the two Pioneer brothers, vrho now resides in Arcadia 
Wayne county, says : — " After our first stock of provisions was 
exhausted, we saw hard times ; got out of corn once ; went and 
bought of Onondaga Indians. For days we were without any pro- 
visions other tlian what the forest, the streams, and our cows affor- 
ded. We eat milk and greens. Venison and fish we could always 
have in plenty. My father hardly ever missed when he went out 
after a deer. Salmon, bass, pickerel, speckled trout, ducks and 
pigeons, were in abundance. " 

A small patch of corn and potatoes, raised by the Stansells and 
Featherly, on the old Dorsey farm, in 1789, were the first crops 
raised in Wayne county. 

Nicholas Stansell died in 1817 ; his suiwiving sons are, William 
Stansell, of Arcadia, and George Stansell, who lives a mile south 
of Newark. John Featherly died a few years since in the town 
of Rose, aged 80 years. Nicholas Stansell, changing his residence 
in 1809, became the proprietor of lands upon which the village- of 
Lockville has grow-n up. 

Mr. Williamson commenced operations at Lyons, in the summer 
of 1794. He m.ade Charles Cameron his principal local agent. 
Reserving nearly a thousand acres, which was afterwards sold to 
.Judge Dorsey, a house and barn were built for Mr. Cameron ; the first 
framed house in that region.* Mr. Cameron had the village surveyed, 
and built a store house and distillery. Before the close of 1796, 
Henry Tower, as Mr. Williamson's agent, had erected and com- 
pleted what was long knov»?n as " Tower's Mills," at Alloway. 

The mills must have been of more than ordinary magnitude, for 
that early period, as the author observes that the cost was over 
twelve thousand dollars. In addition to other improvements, Mr, 
Cameron cleared land, and commenced making a farm. 

Next to Sodus Bay, Mr. Williamson had regarded Prideaux 
(Braddock's) Bay as a favorable position upon the Lake. He made 
some surveys there for a town, but did little towards starting it. 
In his correspondence with his principals in London, he often men- 
tioned the mouth of Genesee River, but not in a way to indicate a 
high opinion of its locality. His aim was to improve only such spots 
as were surrounded by the lands he held in charge. Those nearest 

* It is now standing in a tolerable state of preservation, on the bank of the outlet. 



i 



PHELPS AJST) GOEHAm's PUECnASE. 2 6 '7 

the mouth of the River and the Falls, had been sold by Phelps and 
Gorham, before their sale to the London Associates. In 1794 he 
visited the Falls, Prideaux Bay, and spent a day or two with Wm. 
Hencher. He soon after purchased of Samuel B. Ogden, the Allan 
Mill, and the Hundred Acres, with a view to commencing some 
improvements upon the present site of the city of Rochester. Al- 
lan had sold the property to Benjamin Barton, senior ; and Barton to 
Ogden. - IXIP See deed, or title paper, in Library of Rochester 
Athenaeum and Mechanic's Association. At the time of William- 
son's purchase, the mill, a frail structure originally, with no cus- 
tomers to keep it in motion, had got much out of repair. He 
expended upon it some five or six hundred dollars — put it in tolera- 
ble repair — but unfortunately there were no customers. It w^as 
difficult of access from the older settlements, and mills more con- 
venient for them, were soon erected. The purchase, repair, and 
sale of the mill and mill tract, was about the extent of Mr. Wil- 
liamson's enterprises at the " Falls of the Genesee River," where 
the aspect of things in that early day, was any thing but encouraging. 
In 1798, a party of emigrants from Perthshire, Scotland, emigra- 
ted to America, landing at New York, and coming west as far as 
Johnstown, Montgomery county, halted there to determine on some 
permanent location, Mr. Williamson hearing of the arrival of his 
countrymen, made a journey to see them. He found them poor 
in purse — with nothing to pay for lands — .and but little even for 
present subsistence ; but they came from the 

Land of the forest and the rock, 

Of dark bhie lake and ruightj river. 
Of mountains reared aloft, to mock 

The storm's career, the lightning's shock; — 



Note.— The following may be presumed to be the first business letter that was ever 
written from the site of the present city of Kochester. Christopher Dugan married a 
sister of Ebenczcr Allan, and was put in charge of the mill by him : 

Palls of Genesee, Aug. 9, 1794. 
• "^^u ^^^^ erected by Ebenezer Allan, which I am informed you have purchased, is 
m a bad situation, much out of repair, and unless attention is paid to it, it wUl soon 
take ]ts voyage to the Lake. I have resided here for several years, and kept watch and 
ward, without fee or recompense; and am pleased to hear that it has fallen into the 
hands of a gentleman who "is able to repair it, and whose character is such that I firmly 
believe he will not allow an old man to suffer without reward for his exertions. I wish 
to have you come, or send some one to take care of the mill, as my situation is such 
as makes it necessary soon to remove. I am sir, with respect, your most 

obedient humble servant, 

Charles Willi.\mson, Esq. CHRISTOPHER DtJGAN. 



268 PHELPS AND GOEHAMS PURCHASE- 

they were rich in courage, m a spirit of perseverence, in habits of 
industry ; in all the elements that life in the wilderness, and success 
in it, required. Mr. Williamson became to them not only a patroon, 
but a benefactor. "A Scot had met a brither Scot." He oHered 
them a favorite location, in the neighborhood of the " Big Springs," 
(Caledonia) ; — land at three dollars per acre, payable in wheat at 
six shillings per bushel ; a reasonable pay day ; and besides, to fur- 
nish them with provisions until they could help themselves. Four 
of their number were sent out to view the lands ; were pleased 
with the allotment that Mr. Williamson had made ; on their return, 
met him on his way from Geneva to Canandaigua ; he drew up a 
writing on the road, and the bargain was thus closed. In March; 
1799, while there was yet sleighing, the Scotch adventurers came 
from Johnstown to the " Big Springs.'"* Those who first came 
wei'e : — Peter Campbell and wife, Malcolm M'Laren and v»'ife, 
John M'Naugliton and wife; and Donald M'Vean and Hugh 
M'Dermid, single men. In the fall of the same year, they were 
joined by their countrymen, John M'Vean, John M'Pherson, 
John Anderson, Duncan Anderson, all single men 1)ut M'Vean. 
During the next year they were joined by Donald M'Pherson, 
Donald Anderson, Alexandei^^Thompson, and their families. Those 
whose names have been given, except Thompson and M'Vean, 
had crossed the ocetin in the same ship. They are to be regarded 
as constituting the primitive settlers at Caledonia, though for several 
years after, other of their countrymen joined them. 

The Springs, being on the great trail from Tioga point to Fort 
Niagara, had long been a favorite camping ground. f Previous to 
the Scotch advent, Fuller and Peterson, had become squatters there, 
built log houses, and entertained travelers. This furnished the 
Scotch settlers a temporary shelter. John Smith, one of Mr. Will- 
iamson's surveyors, soon arrived and surveyed their lands, so plan- 
ning the surveys that each allotment would have a front upon the 
streams. Log houses were soon erected in the primitive manner, 
small patches of summer crops planted ; and the Scotch settlers 



* This liad been the name of the locality, even as far back as the first English occu- 
pancy of Niagara. Mr. Williamson gave it the new name of Caledonia. 

t An old Canadian emigrant, and a frequent traveler upon the trail about the close 
of the Revolution, says that camping there was so frequent, that the fires of one pai'ty 
would be burning when another anived. 



PHELPS AlfD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 969 

were soon under way, though struggling with stinted means against 
all the hardships and privations of backwoods life. On their ar- 
rival Mr. Williamson had promptly given orders to Alexander 
McDonald, who was then his agent and clerk at Williamsburg, 
for supplying some provisions. Wheat was procured at Dans- 
ville and ground in the Messrs. Wadsworths' mill at Conesus ; and 
pork was drawn from the store at Williamsburg. Mr. Wil- 
liamson also furnished them with some cows. And how did you 
manage for your early team work ? was the author's enquiry of the 
venerable John McNaughton, now in his 80th year,* surrounded 
by his hundreds of improved acres, his garners filled to overflowing, 
and broad fields, green and luxuriant, promising future abundance. 
" We sold some of our clothes that we could spare, to settlers on the 
river, for the occasional use of their oxen ; " was the answer. In 
addition to other encouragements, Mr. Williamson donated one 
hundred and fifty acres for a "glebe," and fifty acres for school 
purposes. He erected at the Springs a grist and saw mill, which 
were completed in about three years ; as soon in fact, as there was 
much need of a grist mill. 

This is so far as Mr. Williamson was directly connected with the 
Pioneer settlers at Caledonia. Their after progress will be mingled 
with events narrated in succeeding portions of the work. 

The reader of the present day will smile at the idea of " Fairs " 
and " Race grounds " in back woods settlements, at a time when 
settlers generally had but just made small openings in the forest, and 
stood more in need of log causeways over streams, boards for their 
floors, and glass for their windows, than of race horses or improved 
breeds of cattle. But the sanguine adventurous Scotchman had 
seen these things in England and Scotland, and supposed them 
neccessary accompaniments of rural enterprise, even in new settle- 
ments ; and as it will be observed he had ulterior objects in view. 
Impressed with the idea that the region, the settlement of which he 
was endeavoring to promote, was nearly all it had proved to be ; 
enthusiastic even in his efforts ; he had made up his mind that the 

*The survivors of the original Scotch settlers are: — John M'Nanghton, Hugh 
M'Dermid, Douald Anderson, Mrs. M'Vean and Mrs. McLaren, now the widow of 
the late Deacon Hinds Chamberlin, of Le Roy. M'Dermid and Anderson, emigrated 
to Canada some twenty years since. 

Note.— For all that Mr. WilKamson ^mished of provisions and cows, the settlers 
gave their notes, and paid them when due. 



21 PHELPS AUD GOEHAJVl's PUJICIIASE. 

Genesee country need only be seen to be appreciated. In travelling 
through Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, he had endeavored 
to bring men of wealth and enterprise to view the country, but had 
generally failed. It was too secluded, too far off from civilization, 
too much threatened with Indian wars ; had in it too much of the 
elements of chills and fevers, to be attractive, to men who were not 
under the necessity of encountering such formidable difficulties. 
But he had discovered that those he wanted to come and see the 
country were fond of races and holiday sports, and he resolved upon 
instituting them in addition to the attractions he had held out. In 
1794 he had laid out a race course and fair grounds, near the pres- 
ent residence of the Hon. Charles Carroll, on the forks of the Can- 
ascraga creek and Genesee river, and in the foil of that year was 
had there a fair and races. Extensive preparations were made 
for the event. Mr. Williamson's anxiety to have all things in read- 
iness is manifested in a letter to Mr. Wadsvvorth. He says ; — "As 
you have manifested much interest in the exhibition at Williams- 
burg, do, my friend, attend to it, and push the getting a bridge from 
Starr's or thereabouts, to the flats, in time ; Mr. Morris will give 
£lO and I will give £lO. The appointed day came, and there was 
a gathering from all the new settlements of the Genesee country : 
from as far east as Utica ; and of sportsmen and land explorers from 
Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The two small taverns of 
Starr and Fowler, at Williamsburg, and the deserted log houses of 
the Germans, were vastly inadequate to the accommodation of the 
crowd. The few buildings at Geneseo. and all the log tenements of 
the neighborhood were put in requsition, and yet the Fair ground 
had to be an encampment. In the language of an informant of the 
author, who was present: — "Here met for business and pleasure, 
men from all parts of the purchase ; stock was exhibited and pur- 
chases made. Here also were seen for the first time, the holiday 
sports of " merry England, " such as greasing a pigs tail ; climbing 
a greased pole, &c. " Care had been taken for the gratification of 
visitors, to have a general attendance of the Indians; and as it was 
just after Wayne's victory, it was perhaps very wisely considered 
that it would help them in their then growing inclinations to be at 
peace and cultivate the acquaintance of their new neighbors. They 
were present in great numbers, and joined in the sports with great 
relish. Their own foot races and ball plays, were added to the 



PHELPS A]S"D GOEKAm's PUECIIASE. 2T1 

amusements. It all went off well ; all were pleased ; the southern- 
ers and Pennsylvanians vvere delighted with the entertainment and 
with the country ; made favorable reports when they returned home ; 
and with many of them it led finally to emigration. The Fair and 
Races were held next year at Williamsburg, and at Bath and Dans- 
ville, in a few successive years ; Mr. Williamson had himself some 
fine race horses ; and in the way of oxen, such was the magnitude 
of his operations in different portions of the purchase, that at one 
time he had eighty yoke wintering on the Genesee flats. 

In addition to the enterprises of Mr. Williamson, that have been 
named, he was active in procuring the passage of the act for laying 
out the old State Road from Fort Schuyler to Geneva, and was 
one of the commissioners for locating it. In 1798, when Mr. Elli- 
cott had commenced the survey of the Holland Purchase, ha joined 
him in making what was at first called the " Niagara Road," west 
of Genesee river. He made the road from the river to Col. Gan- 
son's, within a mile of Le Roy, expending upon it $2,000. * He 
assisted in making the road from Lyons to Palmyra ; from " Hope- 
ton to Townsends ;" from " Seneca Falls to Lyon's Mills ;" from 
•' Cashong to Hopeton." There are fev/ of the primitive roads in 
Yates, Steuben, and the south part of Livingston, that he did not 
either make or assist in making. He built mills at Hopeton, on 
the Hemlock Lake, and at Williamsburgh. He added to the hotel 
at Geneva, the " Mile Point House and Farm," on the bank of 
Seneca Lake, which he intended for a brother, the "Hopkins' House 
and Farm," and the " Mullender House and Farm," at the Old Castle. 
His enterprises at Wilhamsburg embraced an extensive farm which 

Note — The " Williamson Fair and Races," are among the cherished reminiscences 
of the "oldest inhabitants, " and in fact, it is only the oldest who survive to remem- 
ber them. Frolic, sports, recreation, with the men of that period, were things done in 
earnest like everything else they undertook. Gen. George M'Clm-e, an early Pioneer 
at Bath, now residing at Elgin, Illinois, writing to his old friend Charles Cameron, 
now of Greene, Chenango co., dming the present year, says in allusion to some histor- 
ical reminiscenoes he is gathering up : — " It wont do to tell of all of our doings in those 
days of ' Lang Syne. ' I presume you have not forgotten the night we spent in Dunn's 
hotel when we roasted tli-^ quarter of beef " "Give me your age and any thing else 
you can think of This is a flourishing town. The Chicago and Galena rail road 
passes through it. Why cant you come and make us a visit. You can come all the 
way by steam. I am now in my 80th year, and enjoy good health. 

* In coimection with this enteqDrise, the author has some items of account, showing 
the cost of things at that primitive period: — It cost $18 to take a common waggon 
load from Geneva to Le Boy. 2 bbls. of pork and 2 bbls. of whiskey cost, delivered, 
(atGanson's) $120. Tlie only grind-stone in all the region, was one owned by the 
Indians at Cauawagus, and the use of it cost $1,50. 



272 PHELPS A]SiD GOEHAM'S PURCHASE. 

he called the " Hermitage Farm." Beside this, he had a large farir 
on the Canascraga, a few miles below Dansville, and several farms 
in Steuben. 

Connected v;ith all these improvements in the way of agencies, 
clerkships, mechanics, sm'veyors, road makers, &c., are many fami- 
liar Pioneer names : — Among them, those of William White, John 
Swift, Jonathan Baker, "'Capt. Follett," Reed, Buskirk, Fitzsim- 
mons, Woodward, Griswokl, Henry Brown, Ralph T. Woods, Peter 
ShaefTer, Francis Dana, Solomon Earl, Williams and Frazee, 
Gordon and Evans, James Bardin, Jonathan Woods, Francis Dana, 
Jonathan Mathews, B. Lazelere, David Milner, William Mulhallen, 
Jacob Hartgate, Elisha Brown, Leonard Beaty, Daniel Nicholson, 
Woods and Pratt, Thomas Wilbur, Nathaniel Williams, Judah 
Colt, Caleb Seely, Thomas W. Williams, E. Hawkes, David Abbey, 
King and Howe, Joseph Merrill, Charles Dutcher, Jonathan Bur- 
nett, Robert Burnett, Peter Lander. David Fish, Daniel Britain, 
E. Van Winkle, Gideon Dudley, Norman Merry, David Abbey, 
Obadiah Osburn, George Humphrey, Annanias Piatt, Wm. Angus, 
John Davis, Grieve and Moffatt, John Carey, James Beaumont, 
Joshua Laig, George Goundry, Elisha Pratt, Pierce_ Chamberlain, 
Joseph Roberts, Thomas Howe, David Dennett, Jeremiah Gregory, 
Darling Havens, Daniel P. Faulkner, Jonathan Harker, Henry 
Brown, Asa Simmons, Peter Rice, W. M'Cartney, James Hender- 
son, Rufus Boyd. These are but a moiety ; for a considerable 
period, in one way and another, a large proportion of the new 
settlers were connected with his enterprises. 

He was a large subscriber to the Canandaigua Academy, to the 
first library established at Geneva, and aided in some of the first 
movements made in the Genesee country, in the cause of educa- 
tion. After he had extended his road from Northumberland, Penn., 
to Williamsburg, on the Genesee river, he soon established a mail, 
on foot sometimes, and sometimes on horseback, between the two 
points, thus opening a communication with Philadelphia and Balti- 
more. A branch mail went to Canandaigua, Geneva and Sodus. 

Note. — About the time of the projection of the State Road west of Rome, Mr. 
Williamson was riding upon Long Islaiul, in company with De Witt Clinton, who re- 
markinsr npon the smoothness of the road, said to Mr. W.: — "If you had such roads 
to your country I would make you a visit," — "It can be done with proper exertions." 
Mr. Clinton promised hira his co-operation, and afterwards assisted in ])rocuring 
the incorporation of the Seneca Turnpike Company, in wliich the State Road was 
merged. Mr. CUutou's first vi^^it to this region, was in 1810. 



PHELPS AND GOKHAJm's PURCHASE. 273 

For several years after, a better understanding was had with Gov. 
Simcoe and his successors by means of these mail facilities ; they 
received their letters and papers from Europe and the Atlantic 
cities, through this primitive medium. It is presumed that he had 
something to do with putting on the first mail and passenger wagon 
from Albany to Canandaigua, as the agent at Albany procured and 
charged to him a wagon and harness for that purpose. 

Mr. Williamson was elected to the legislature from Ontario 
county, in 179(3 ; and for three successive years, while in that capa- 
city, he contributed with great energy and perseverance to dif- 
ferent measures for the benefit of the region he represented, which 
was all of Western New York. He was a Judge of Ontario county ; 
in the early military organizations in what is now Steuben, equipped 
an independent company at his own expense ; and rose from the 
rank of Captain in hi^ Britannic Majesty's service, to that of Col. 
of a regiment of backwoods militia in the Genesee country. 

The manufacture of pot and pearl-ash was prominent in his view, 
as one of the resources of the new country ; he gave some en- 
couragement to it ; but the means of transportation to market at 
that early day, was a great drawback upon the enterprise. * The 
manufacture of maple sugar was also an object of interest with 
him ; and in fact, was an anticipated source of great revenue to 
the country, by many of the earliest adventurers. They failed to 
appreciate the competition it had to encounter in the sugar-cane and 
cheap labor. One of the earliest enterprises of Mr. Williamson, 
was the improvement of the navigation of the Conhocton and 
Canisteo, the manufacture of lumber, and the carrying of it to Bal- 
timore, in periods of high water. 

In all this career of Pioneer enterprise that has been passed over, 
it may well be anticipated that much money was required. There 
W'as little money in the country — hardly enough for the purchase 
of the common necessaries of life — of course, not enough to make 
any considerable land payments. Lands had to be sold upon credit, 
payments of instalments postponed ; most of his enterprises were 



* Writing to Mr. Colquhoim soon after his amval in this country, he stated that 
Judge Cooper, father of J. Fennimore Cooper, "who was tlien just founding a settle- 
ment on the Otsego Lake, was greatly promoting sales of land and settlement, by 
furnishing tlie new settlers with pot-ash kettles to a large amount. He speaks of the 
after hero of backwoods' romance — "Judge Temple," — as a prominent co-worker ia 
promoting settlements. 



274 PIIELPS AND GORHAm's PUECHASE. 

ahead of the time and the condition of the country, and made slow 
returns. Tlie resources were mainly the capital of -his principals, 
the London associates. Seldom, if ever, have property holders ad- 
vanced larger amounts for improvements, or more freely at first, 
though they began to be impatient after years had gone by, and the 
returns of their immense outlays were coming in but slowly to re- 
plenish their coffers. In 1800, the balance sheets did not look well 
fol" their Genesee country enterprise. There had been expended 
for purchase money of lands, agencies, and improvements, such as 
have been indicated, 81,374,470 10. There had been received for 
lands sold, but $147,974 83. In addition to this balance against 
them, they owed of principal and interest upon lands purchased, over 
$300,000. To make all this look better, however, they had an im- 
mense amount of unsold lands, farms and mills, and an immense 
debt due for lands sold. While all Mr. Williamson's enterprises 
had been putting the country ahead in the way of settlement and 
improvement, (even from ten to fifteen years, as many estimate,) 
another direct effect must have been, the adding vastly to the prin- 
cipals, the care of which he turned over to his successors. He 
found the wild lands of the Genesee country selling at from 1 to 4s. 
per acre; he left them selling at from $1,50 to $4. 

He had at first formidable difficulties to overcome, other than 
such as have been named and indicated, as consequent upon the 
task of settling a country so isolated from the older settlements, 
possessing so many harsh features to keep back emigration. Ho 
was a foreigner, and had held a commission in the ranks of the 
British army, with whom a large portion of the new settlers had 
just been contending upon battle fields. Arms had been grounded, 
but feelings of resentment, prejudice, were rife. The possession of 
Fort Niagara and Oswego, the British claims upon the territory of 
Western New York, their tampering with the western Indians, and 
even those that were unreconciled here, served to keep ahve this 
feehng. Although Mr. Williamson had from the time he landed in 
America, given the strongest evidence that he intended to merge 
himself with the disenthralled colonics, and throw off all allegiance 
to Great Britain, still he encountered jealousy and distrust. In re- 
capitulating to Sir Wm. Pulteney, toward the close of his agency, 
the difficulties he had encountered, he makes the following remarks : 
' Even previous to 1794. there w^as a strong predisposition against 



PHELPS AND GORHAM's PUKCHASE. 2T5 

every thing that was British. But this was more particularly the 
case in those parts of the back country adjacent to the British set- 
tlements ; and where, from the influence of the British govern- 
ment with the Indians, there was too much reason to fear that hos- 
tilities from that quarter would be directed against these infant set- 
tlements. These jealousies met me in an hundred mortifying in- 
stances ; and they were with difficulty prevented from having the 
most disagreeable effects, both to me and every old countryman in 
the settlements. To such an extent was this carried, that every 
road I talked of was said to be for the purpose of admitting the In- 
dians and Briti;sh ; every set of arms I procured — though really to 
enable the settlers to defend themselves againt the Indians — was 
said to be for supplying the expected enemy ; and the very grass 
seed I brought into the country for the purpose of supplying the 
farmers, was seized as gun powder going to the enemies of the 
country." He also alleges that these distrusts — opposition to his 
movements — were enhanced by influential individuals, who were 
interested in the sale of wild lands in other localities. 

All this, however, wore off", as we may well conclude, for he was 
elected to represent the county in the legislature, with but little op- 
position, in 179G, and the mark of favor was repeated. Well educated, 
possessing more than ordinary social qualities, with a mind im- 
proved by travel and association with the best classes in Europe, 
his society was sought after by the many educated and intelligent 
men who came to this region in the earliest years of settlement ; 
and he knew well how to adapt himself to circumstances, and to 
all classes that went to make up the aggregate of the early adven- 
turers. Changing his habits of life with great ease and facility, he 
was at home in every primitive log cabin ; a welcome, cheerful, and 
contented guest, with words of encouragement for those who were 
sinking under the hardships of Pioneer hfe ; and often with sub- 
stantial aid, to relieve their necessities ; away off in some isolated 
opening of the forest would be those prostrated by disease, to whom 
he would be the good Samaritan, and send them the bracing tonic 
or restoring cordial. These acts of kindness, his benevolence of 
heart, are well remembered by surviving Pioneers ; and repeatedly 
has the author been importuned by them to speak well of their 
friend, in those local annals. 

From the day that Mr. Williamson arrived in this country, until 



276 PHELPS AISTD GORITAm's PURCHASE. 

he returned to Europe, his correspondence was extensive and em- 
braced a large number of prominent men in the northern States 
and in Europe. The interests of all this region were deeply in- 
volved in the success of Mr. Jay's mission to England in 1794. Mr. 
Williamson's acquaintance with the statesmen of England, were 
with those principally of the conservative class, and with them he 
urged a reconciliation of all existing difficulties. He made the Eng- 
lish government acquainted with the conduct of their agents in 
Canada : with their machinations with the Indians to bring on an- 
other series of border wars ; and with the conduct of British officers 
at the western posts, in stimulating the Indians to stealthy assaults 
upon settlers, surveyors and explorers. QO^ See account of murder 
of Major Trueman, Appendix, No. 10. The treaty of Mr. Jay con- 
cluded, he urged upon the Colonial department of the English gov- 
ernment, the substitution of better disposed neighbors in the Cana- 
das, than Lord Dorchester, and Gov. Simcoe ; and the hastening of 
the fulfilment of treaty stipulations by the surrender of Oswego and 
Niagara. Trouble, an open rupture with England, was to be sure, 
but postponed ; but the author can hardly forego the conclusion, that 
in the infancy of settlement in the Genesee country, it was fortunate 
that English statesmen were extensive land holders — deeply inter- 
ested in the securing of peace and prosperity to the country — and 
that they had for their local agent, such a man as Charles Williamson. 
There had accompanied Mr. Williamson on his first advent to 
the country, from Scotland, Charles Cameron, John Johnstone, 
James Tower, Henry Tower, Andrew Smith and Hugh McCartney. 
Mr. Cameron came over at the solicitation of Mr. Williamson, pen- 
etrated the wildernes with him, assisted in planning and executing 
improvem.ents, kept the books and accounts, was his travelling com- 
panion in many forest journeys ; and in fact, was closely connected 
with him during his whole residence in the country. He was the 
local agent as has been seen, at Lyons, and from that point it is 
supposed, shipped the first produce of the Genesee country to an 
eastern market ; the flour from the mills that had been erected un- 
der his agency. He was one of the earliest merchants at Canan- 
daigua ; at a primitive period, when the mercantile business of 
almost the entire Genesee country, was transacted in that village. 
In this relation he was widely and favorably known to the Pioneers. 
Either upon his own account, or as agent for Mr. Williamson, he 



PHELPS AOT) GORHAm's PURCHASE. 277 

was a merchant at Bath before he removed to Lyons, as is inferred 
from a store bill, which the author has in his possession : — 

Bath, October, 1793. 
John Dolson,* 

Bought of Charles Cameron : 

Oct. 26, 1 111. chocolate, 2s. 6d ; 1-3 gal. whiskey 5s. £0 7a. 6d. 

Nov. 5. 1 gallon -whiskey, 10s. 10 

Mr. Cameron is one of the few smwivors of that early period. 
He is now in his 78th year ; a resident of Greene, Chenango county, 
Mr. Johnstone was also in ?*Ir. Williamson's employ. 

When the division of lands took place between Sir Wm. Pultene} 
and Gov. Hornby, Mr. Johnstone became the agent of the Hornbj 
lands, in which agency he continued until his death in 1806. He 
married a step-daughter of Nicholas Lowe, of New York. He 
was the father of James Johnstone, of Canandaigua, and Mrs. 
Leavenworth, of New York. 

Henry Tower, was an agent in the erection of the mills at Lyons, 
(or " AUoway,") became the purchaser of them ; and resided there 
for many years. Hugh McCartney settled in Sparta. Of the other 
two who came with Mr. Williamson, the author has no account. 

Mr. Williamson's first engagement with the London Associates, 
was for the term of seven years ; though he continued in the agen- 
cy beyond the expiration of that period. It has already been in- 
dicated, that his principals were somewhat impatient at the slow- 
return of his large outlays ; and the sanguine, impulsive agent, may 
have ventured to deplete their purses too rapidly; but there could 
have been no serious misunderstanding between them, as the cor- 
respondence that took place, in reference to the final settlement of 
the affairs of the agency in 1800 and 1801, exhibit a continuance 
of mutual esteem and friendship. A paragraph in a letter from Sir 
Wm. Pultney to the successor in the agency, indicates a wish that 
Mr. Williamson should be dealt honorably with in the settlement. 

In the final adjustment of his alTairs with his principals, what 
would then have been considered a very large estate, was left him 
in farms, village property in Geneva and Bath, wild lands, bonds 
and mortgages, and personal property. James Reess, Esq., of Geneva, 



• i-n*^' ■^°^-^°" ^^^'^'^ °^^^ Elmira. In one of Mr. Williamson's backwoods excursions 
in 1/92, he had an attack of fever at Mr. Dolson's house, where he was nursed until 
he recovered. He presented the family with twenty guineas, and a farm wherever 
they might choose it upon the purchase. 



278 PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

was his agent, until he finally returned to ScotJand. in 1803, or '4, 
when he left all his affairs in America, with his friend Col. Benja- 
min Walker, of Utica. The successor of Col. Walker in the care 
of the Williamson estate, was John II. Woods Esq., of Geneva, 
with whom it now remains. 

Aaron Burr was identified, as has already been observed, with 
some of the earliest movements in the direction of the Genesee 
country. Soon after Mr. Williamson's arrival, he made his acquain- 
tance, and retained him as counsel in his business ; and the farther 
relation of strong personal friendship soon succeeded. In 1795, 
Mr. Burr made a visit to this region, continuing his journey as far 
west as Niagara Falls. He was accompanied by his daughter The- 
odosia, and her then, or afterwards, husband, Mr. Allston. The 
party were on horseback.* Upon this occasion, Mr. Williamson 
had interviews with him, if he was not in fact, his travelling com- 
panion in a part of the trip ; and when Mr. Williamson became a 
member of the legislature in '96, and in succeeding years, business 
and social relations, made them frequent companions in Albany. 
In whatever project Mr. Burr had at the south, Mr. Williamson 
Vv'as blended, and would have taken a conspicuous part in it, if it had 
not been so summarily arrested. 

After Mr. Williamson left this country, he resided at the home of 
his family in Balgray, and in London. He died in 1808. The 
only record of the event, that the author has been able to obtain, is 
the following extract of a letter from Col. Walker, to " Mr. Wm. Ellis, 

I^OTE. — Col. Benjamia Walker, •vra.s an early and prominent citizen of Utica. In 
the early part of the Revolution he had been in the staff of Gcn.Wasliington, and waa 
afterwards the aid of Baron Steuben. He is connected with a good anecdote of tlie 
Baron: — Reviewing some raw troops, he ordered them with liis imperfect English 
pronunciation, to fall back, which they mistook for "advance," and came rnsliiug di- 
rectly upon him. Irritated, jmd fearing they would understand him no better in hia 
reprimands, he ordered Col. "Walker to d — u them in Enghsh. 

In 179:2 he was surveyor of the port of New York, and was employed by Messrs. 
Pulteney and Hornby to settle with an agent in this country, Avho had invested some 
money ior them in lands, (other than the Genesee purchase,) which led to his early 
acqxuiintance with Mr. Williamson. His correspondence with Mr. Wilhamson after he 
returned to Europe, would indicate superior talents ; and tliere could be gleaned from 
them many interesting early reminiscences of events m this country. Col. Walker ■ 
died in Utica, in 1818. An only daughter married D'Villiers, a French gentleman, 
who was in tliis region in '94, or '5. Slio died in France. The only representative of J 
the family in this couutiy, is an adopted daughter, Mrs. Eoure of Geneva. 

* In this western visit Mr. Bnrr parted from his travelling companions at Avon," 
and wont down and visited the falls of the Genesee, taldug then- height, and a landscape 
view of them. He shared the log cabin of Mr. Sliaeffer, over night, on his return, and 
;he old gentleman well remembers his praises of the new country, and his "pleasant, 
Bociable tui-n." 



PIIELP3 AND GOKHAM's PURCHASE. 279 

Nicholson street, Edingburg :" — " An extract sent me from an 
English newspaper, announces the death of my friend, Col. Will- 
iamson, as having happened on his pasrsage from Ilavanna to 
England ; an event v/hich will be most sincerely lamented by a 
numerous acquaintance in this country, vvho esteemed and loved 
him." 

There is nov/ no descendants of Mr. Williamson in this country. 
He lost a son and a daughter in Bath ; and a son and daughter went 
soon after him to Scotland. The daughter survives, Charles A. 
Williamson, the son, married a Miss Clark of New York, and resi- 
ded in Geneva. Enticed by the discovery of gold in California — 
although he would seem to have had enough of wealth to satisfy a 
reasonable ambition — he took the overland route in the summer 
of 1818, died of cholera at Fort Laramie ; and about the same 
period his wife died in Scotland. 

Sir William Pultency died in May, 1805, leaving an only heir, his 
daughter, Henrietta Laura Pulteney, Countess of Bath. She died 
in July, 1808. DC/' For historical, and legal deduction of title to 
lands, other than what is contained in the body of the work, see 
Appendix No. 1 1 . 



EGBERT TROUP. 



The successor of Mr. Williamson, in the general agency ot the 
London Association, was Col. Robert Troup. He was a native of 
New Jersey ; in the war of the Revolution, he was the aid of Gen 

ISoTE. — There are contradictory accounts of Mr. Williamson's position at the period 
of his death. One is, that he had been appointed by the British j^oveernment, Govern- 
or of one of the West India Islands; and another is, that his adventurous and enter- 
ing spirit, had connected him with some of the earliest moveraents in relation to 
ith American Independence, in which he was to have borne a conspicuous part ; 
and in pursuance of which, he was at sea, at the period of his death. 

Note.— Ill a letter from James Wadsworth to Col. Troup, dated in September, 1805, 
he says : — " I have just heard of the death of Sii- William Pultney. My miud is strong- 
ly impressed with the disasters that may befal this section of the State, from the 
event. Sir WilUam was a man of busine.ss ; lie was capable of deciding for himself, 
what was and what was not proper. What may be the character of his successor we 
know not ." In another letter from the sjime to the same, it is assumed tliat the successor 
in the management of the estate, is Sir James Pulteney. Mr. W. says : — I once dined 
with Sir James at Sii- William's ; he is devoted to the army, and a great favorite of 
the Duke of York ; and I think I liave been informed, quite regardless of property ; 
but of his honorable views, and perfect soundness of mind, I have no reason to doubt"' 



280 PIIELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

Gates ; his father was an officer of the navy in the precedhig French 
war. Previous to the Revolution, Col. Troup had been a student 
at law in the office of Thomas Smith, of Ilavestraw, New Jersey, 
and subsequently in the office of Gov. Jay. After obtaining license, 
he opened an office in the city of Albany, and soon after returned 
to New York, where he practiced law until 1801. He was a few 
years a Judge of the U. S. District Court. In 1801 he was appoin- 
ted a general ae;ent of the Pultenev estate. Residinc; in New York 
and Albany, he frequently visited this region, until 1814, when he 
became a permanent resident of Geneva. Under his auspices a 
large portion of the original purchase of the London Associates, 
(such as had not been settled during Mr. Williamson's administra- 
tion,) was sold and settled. Liberal in his views, public spirited, 
and possessed of much practical knowledge, he was a valuable 
helper in speeding on the prosperity of the Genesee country. Al- 
though the "Mill Tract," west of the Genesee river, was settled 
under the immediate auspices of Mr. Wadsworth, Col. Troup as 
the general agent, had much to do in all that relates to its pioneer 
history ; and for over thirty years, his name was conspicuously 
blended wdth the history of all this local region. He was one of 
the early promoters of the Erie Canal, and wielding a ready and 
able pen, he did much to forward that great measure in its early 
projection and progress. He was the intimate friend of Alexander 
Hamilton, and in fact few enjoyed more of the intimate acquaint- 
ance and friendship, of the most of prominent men of the Revolution, 
and early statesmen of New York. He died in New York in 1832, 
aged 74 years. He had two sons, one of whom died in Cliarleston, 
and the other in N. York. A daughter of his is Mrs. James L. 
Brinkerhoof, of N. York; and another unmarried daughter resides 
in New York. 

Before Col. Troup's removal to Geneva, the immediate duties of 
the agency devolved successively upon John Johnstone, John Hes- 
lop and Robert Scott. Heslop was first a clerk of Mr. Wads- 
w^orth, and entered the Geneva office a short time before the close 
of Mr. Williamson's agency. He died on a visit to his native 
country, England. Mrs. Greshom, of Brooklyn, is a daughter 
of his. 



PHELP3 AND GOBHAm's PUKCHASK 281 

JOSEPH FELLOWS. 



Joseph Fellows is a native of Warwickshire, England; from 
which place his father emigrated in 1795 to Luzerne county, Penn., 
17 miles from Wilkesbarre. At the age of fourteen, soon after the 
arrival of the family in this country, he entered the office of Isaac 
L. Kip, Esq., as a student at law ; was admitted to practice but 
soon after entered the office of Col. Troup. He came to Geneva 
m 1810, as a sub-agent in the Pultney land office ; the details of the 
agency principally devolved upon him, until the death of Colonel 
Troup, whc-n he became his successor in the general agency, which 
position he still retains. Mr. Fellows is a bachelor ; a siste'r of his 
was the wife of Dr. Eli Hill, the early physician of Conesus and 
Geneseo. Dr. Hill removed to Berrien, Michigan, where he died 
m 1838. His three sons, Edward, Joseph and Henry, are residents 
of Buffalo. Mrs. Hill survives, and resides at Geneva, with her 
brother. 

The purchasers of the Pultney lands, have found in Mr. Fellows 
an agent disposed to conduct the business with strict inteo-ritv and 
m the same spirit of liberality and indulgence that had actuated his 
predecessors. "I went to him," said a farmer upon the Lake shore, 
m Wayne county, to the author, "and told him my house was old 
and uncomfortable, and I could build if he would give mean exten- 
sion of payment. He granted me even more than I asked." « My 
payments were due," said another, "sickness had been added to 
unpropitious seasons; he made a liberal deduction of interest, and 
gave me an extension of payment, which enabled me finally to pos- 
sess an unincumbered farm." 



The clerlvs m the Geneva office, in successsion, have been Thos 
Goundry, George Goundry, William Van Wort, David H. Vance, 
Ihe present clerks are Wm. Young and John Wride 

When Mr. Williamson left Bath, James Reese removed there 
Irom Geneva, and took the temporary charge of the Land Office 
Kes.gnmg the post in 1803, he was succeeded by Samuel L. Haight 

Gen. Haight was a student at law, with the late Gen. Matthews 
at Newtown ; entering his office in 1796. In 1801 he was admitted 
lo 



282 PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 

to practice in the Supreme Court, and in the following year opened 
an office in Bath. Assuming the duties of the Land Office soon 
after, he continued to discharge them until 1814. He was sub- 
sequently the law partner of General Matthews at Bath, and re- 
mained so until Gen. M. removed to Rochester in 1821. He now 
resides at Cuba, Allegany county. Besides holding important civil 
stations, in 1819 he received the appointment of Major General of 
the 25th military division, then comprising the counties of Steuben, 
Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauque.* 

The subsequent agents in the Bath office have been, Dugald 
Cameron, and William M'Kay ; the latter of whom is the present 
agent. He is the son of John S. M'Kay, who emigrated to Geneva 
in 1800, and died in Pittsford, in 1819. 



JOHN GREIG. 



Mr. Greig was a native of Moffat, in Dumirieshire, Scotland. His 
father was a lawyer by profession, the factor or agent of the Earl 
of Hopeton; and besides, a landholder, ranking among the better 
class of Scotch farmers. Afte-r having acquired in his native 
parish, and in a High School in EJinburg, a substantial education, 
while undetermined as to his pursuits in life, Mr. Johnstone, who, it 
will have been seen, had been in this region, connected with Mr. 
Williamson, revisited his native country, and meeting Mr. Greig, 
induced him to be his companion on his return to the new world. 
They arrived at New York, in the winter of 1799 and 1800, after 
a tedious passage of eleven weeks. Mr. Greig, after spending some 
time in iN'ew York and Albany, came to Canandaigua, in April,. 
1800. He became a student at law, in the office of Nathaniel W. 
Howell, and in 1804 was admitted to practice. In 1806, on the 
occurrence of the death of his friend, John Johnstone, he succeeded 
him in the agency of the Hornby and Colquhoun estate ; in which he 
has continued up to the present period. 

In an early period of his professional career, he became the part- 
ner of Judge Howell ; the partnership continued until 1820. Ming- 
ling with his professional duties, the arduous ones consequent upon 



* In 1819 all that territoiy contaiaed but 3,100 men, subject to military duty, 



I 



PHELPS AND GOSHAm's PURCHASE. 283 

the sale and settlement of large tracts of wild lands, professional 
eminence could hardly be expected ; yet in early days, when there 
were " giants in the land" — when the bar of western New York 
had in its front rank, a class of men, wdiose places can now harldy 
be said to be filled — they found in the young foreigner a professional 
cotemporary, possessed of sound legal acquirements ; and especially 
recommending himself to their esteem, by a high sense of honors 
and a courtesy, which ruled his conduct at the bar, as well as in 
the business and social relations of life. 

As a patroon of new settlements — which his agency of a foreign 
and absent principal, made him — in that position, in which so im- 
portant an influence is wielded over the destinies of a new coun- 
try — his best eulogy is found in the frequent expressions of gratitude, 
which a gatherer of historical reminiscences may hear, from the 
lips of surviving Pioneers, for indulgence and kindness received 
at his hands.. 

Mr. Greig succeeded Mr. Gorham, in the Presidency of the On- 
tario Bank, soon after 1820, which place he continues to fill. He 
became one of the Regents of the University in 1825, and is now 
the Vice Chancellor of the Board. In 1841, '2, he was the Repre- 
sentative in ('ongress, from Ontario and Livingston ; and is now 
one of the managers of the Western House of Refuge. 

He is now 72 years of age ; his general health and constitution 
not seriousl}'^ impaired ; his mental faculties retaining much of the 
vigor of middle age ; having the general supervision of his estate, 
and discharging the public duties which his several offices impose. 

One of the largest estates of western New York, is the fruit of 
his youthful advent to a region he has seen converted from a wil- 
derness, to one of fruitful fields and unsurpassed prosperity; — of a 
long life of professional and business enterprise and judicious man- 
agement. Leaving his young countrymen and school fellows to 
inherit estates ; with a self-reliance, which can only give substantial 
success in life, he boldly and manfully struck out into a new field of 
enterprise — a then fresh and new world — and became the founder 
of one. Liberal in its management and disposition, with a sensible 
estimate of what constitutes the legitimate value and use of wealth; 
he is the promoter of public enterprises, the liberal patron of public, 
and the dispenser of private charities ; in all of which he finds a 
willing co-operator in his excellent wife, who is a worthv descend- 



284 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

ant of one who occupied a front rank among the earliest Pio- 
neers of the Genesee country. She was the daughter of Captain 
Israel Chapin, the grand-daughter of Gen. Israel Chapin ; was mar- 
ried to Mr. Greig in 1806. 



CHAPTER III 



INDIAN DIFFICULTIES BRITISH INTERFERENCE INDIAN COUNCILf? 

GEN. ISRAEL. CHAPIN. 



In preceding pages, the reader has observed some indications of 
unsettled relations between the Indians, and the early adventurers 
of our own race, in tiie Genesee country ; and the mischievous 
influence of those to whom they had been allies in the Revolution. 
All this will be farther exhibited in connection with the early settle- 
ment of Sodus. In this chapter it is proposed to treat the subject 
generally, avoiding as far as possible a repetition of wiial has been 
aiid will be, in the other connections, but incidental. 

The reader of American general history, need hardly be told, 
that what was called a treaty of peace with Great Britain, in 1783, 
war rather an armistice — a cessation of hostilities — and that but 
little of real peace, or amicable relations, was immediately conse- 
quent upon it. On the one hand, a proud arrogant nation, worsted 
in a contest with a few feeble colonies, its invading armies defeated 
and routed, grudgingly and reluctantly yielded to a stern necessity, 
and allowed only enough of concession to be wrung from her, to 
secure the grounding of arms. And on the other hand, success, 
victory, had been won by a last, and almost desperate effort, — the 
wearied colonies gladly embracing an opportunity to rest. Thus 
conditioned, the terms of peace were illy defined, and left open 
questions, to irritate and furnish grounds for a renewal of hostilities. 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 285 

British armies re-crossed the ocean, and British navies left our 
coasts, but British resentment was still rife. In the palace at 
Windsor, England's King was mourning with almost the weakness 
of childhood, or dotage, over his lost colonies; yielding to the 
sacrifice with a bad grace, and in the absence of any kingly digni- 
ty. Rich jewels had dropped from his crown, and he refused to be 
reconciled to their loss ; and his ministers, with more of philosophy, 
but little less of chagrin and discomfiture, in peace negotiations, 
seem almost to have made mental reservations, that contemplated 
a renewal of the contest. The homely adage, " like master like 
man," was never better illustrated, than it was in the persons and 
official acts of those who came out as government officers and 
agents, to look to the little that was saved to Endand, after the 
wreck of the Revolution. But one spirit, and one feeling pervaded 
in the home and colonial governments. It was that the treaty had 
been an act of present necessity, that had not contemplated an 
ultimate sacrifice of such magnitude as was the final loss of the 
American colonies. The statesmen of England, were not unmind- 
ful that the site of an Empire lay spread out around our western 
lakes and rivers, and in all of what is now western New York, over 
which the Indians held absolute and undisputed sovereignty. Those 
Indians were their allies, ready to take the tomahawk from its belt, 
and the knife from its sheath at their bidding. 

The first, and principal hope and reliance of England, touching 
the reversion of her lost empire, was that the experiment of free 
government would be a failure. Astonished that resistance to their 
rule had been attempted by a few feeble colonies, and more aston- 
ished that it had been successful — almost prepared to believe in 
the decrees of fate, or the enactment of miracles — they were yet 
unprepared to believe that discordant materials could be so blended 
together as to insure a permanent separation ; that here in the 
backwoods of America, statesmen would be created by exigency, 
with a firmness, an intuitive wisdom, to mould together a perma- 
nent confederacy, that would be the wonder of the old world ; a 
pohtical phenomena — and thus secure all that had been so dearly 
won. After the close of the Revolution, every movement upon 
this side of the water, was watched with intense anxiety. Unpro- 
pitious as were the first few years of the experiment, the events in 
creased their confidence. The difficulties growing out of disputed 



286 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

boundaries between the States ; the Shay rebelhon in Massachu- 
setts ; the internal commotions in Pennsylvania ; and finally the 
discordant views of those who came together to form a Union, and 
a permanent government ; all helped to increase their hopes, that 
divided and distracted, the colonies would either fall back into their 
embraces, or be an easy conquest when they chose to renew the 
war. 

In the final success in the formation of a confederacy of States, 
— the Union — the interested croakers lost "some confidence in their 
predictions, but they still hoped for the worst. If they admitted 
for a moment that there might be a confederacy of eastern States, 
they thought they saw enough of the elements of trouble in geo- 
graphical divisions, in conflicting interests of soils and climate ; in a 
curse they had entailed upon the colonies in the form of African 
slavery, to insure the failure of the experiment to embrace the 
whole in one political fabric. 

Disappointed in their earliest hopes, they fell back upon another 
reliance ; that by means of a continued alliance with the Six Na- 
tions, and with the western Indians, they should be enabled to re- 
tain all of what had been French Canada ; western New York, the 
vallies of the western lakes and the Mississippi. With tiiis end in 
view, by means of pretences so flimsy, that they never rose to the 
dignity of being sufficiently defined to be understood, they disre- 
garded the plainest stipulations of the treaty of 1783, withheld the 
posts upon Lake Ontario and the western lakes, and steadily pur- 
sued the policy of commercial outrages and annoyances, dogged 
and irritating diplomacy, and bringing to bear upon the Indians an 
influence that was intended to embarrass all our negotiations with 
them, and ultimately to make them allies in a renewed contest for 
dominion over them and their territory. • 

The settlement of the Genesee country, commenced under the 
untoward circumstances of a continued British occupancy ; tlie 
native owners of the soil, but illy reconciled to the treaties of ces- 
sions, and thus in a condition to be easily incited to mischief; while 
off upon the borders of the western lakes, were numerous nations 
and tribes ready to join them, to redress their fancied wrongs, at 
the instigation of the malign influences that lingered among them. 
For six years after feeble settlements were scattered in backwood's 
localities, the British retained Fort Oswego and Niagara, and the 



PHELPS AND GORKAM^S PURCHASE. 287 

western posts ; no American commerce was allowed on Lake Onta- 
rio, or if allowed, it was a mere sufferance, attended wjih all the 
annoyance and insolence of an armed police at the two important 
points, Oswego and Niagara. 

In the person of Lord Dorchester, the Gov. General of Canada, 
was an implacable enemy of the disenthralled colonies, an embodi- 
ment and fit representative of the spirit that ruled his home gov- 
ernment, and his deputy. General Simcoe, the Lieutenant Governor 
of the Upper Province, located at Niagara, was well fitted to take 
the lead in that then retreat of mischief makers and irreconciled 
refugees. Sir John Johnstone, after his retreat from the Mohawk, 
had continued to reside at Montreal, and after the war, retained a 
large share of the influence he had inherited, over the Six Nation's. 
He may well be supposed to have had no very kind feelings toward his 
old neighbors. He was in fact the ready helper in the persevering 
attempts that were made to keep the Indians irreconciled anrl trouble- 
some. The position of Joseph Brant was equivocal ; keen scrutiny 
and watchfulness, failed to determine what were his real inclina- 
tions. Even his partial biographer, has left his conduct in the crisis 
we are considering, an enigma. At times he would seem to have 
been for peace ; in his correspondence with Messrs. Kirkland, 
Phelps, Thomas Morris, General Chapin, and with the Secretary 
of War, General Knox, there were professions of peaceful inclina- 
tions ; while at the same period, he would be heard of in war coun- 
cils of the western Indians, stirring up with a potent influence, side 
bv side with his British allies, their worst passions ; or organizing 



ISToTE.— As late as the summer of 1795, even after tlie Jay ti-eaty and Wayne's treaty 
of Grenville, Col. Simcoe was iiTeconciled, and to all appearances looking forward to 
a renewal of the contest between Great Britain and her lost colonies, or States as they 
had then become. The Duke Liancourt, was then his guest, at Niagara, who says of 
him : — "War seems to be the object of his leading passions ; " he is acquainted with 
the military history of all countries ; no hillock catches his eye without exciting in 
hLs mind the idea of a fort, which might be constructed on the spot, and with the 
coastruction of this fort he associates the plan of operations for a campaign, especially 
of that which is to lead him to Philadelphia." At the Indian village of Tuscarora, 
near Lewiston, where the Duke accompanied him, he told the Indians that the "Yan- 
kees were brooding over some e\'il designs against them ; that they had no other object 
in view but to rob them of their lands ; and that their good father, King George, was 
the ti-ue friend of theh nation. He also repeated, that the maize thief, Timothy 
Pickering, was a rogue and a liar." When the Governor and the Duke were on their 
way to Tuscarora, they met an American family on their way to Canada. On learn- 
ing their destination," the Governor said to them: — "Aye, aye, you are tired of the 
Federal government ; you like not any longer to have so many kings ; you wish again 
for your old father, come along and I will give you lands." 



288 PHELPS AND GOEH Ail's PUECHASE, 

armed bands of Canada Indians, as allies of the western confeder^ 
ates. Red Jacket was a backwoods Talleyrand, and Cornplanter, 
an unschooled Metternich. 

Col. John Butler, living at Niagara in affluence, richly pensioned, 
and himself and family connections richly endowed with lands by 
the king, repaid the bounties of his sovereign with all the zeal that 
he had shewn in the war, by seconding the views of Lord Dorches- 
ter and Col. Simcoe. As Superintendent of Indian affairs he had 
the keys of the king's store house at Niagara, and dispensed his 
presents profusely among the Indians, telling them that the "king, 
their good father, would soon want their services again, against the 
rebels." The early settlers of the Genesee country, saw on more 
than one occasion, the Indians in possession of new broadcloths, 
blankets, and silver ornaments, that came from the king's store house, 
the fearful purport of v/hich they well understood. Some of the 
influences and agencies that have been named^ had assisted in land 
treaties, but it had been for pay, and with the hope ultimately of the 
partition of New York, and the non-fulfilment of the treaty stipu- 
lation for the surrender of its western territory. Lingering yet 
upon the Genesee river, and in several other localities, were refu- 
gees from the Mohawk, with feelings rankling in their bosoms akin 
to those of Milton's fallen angels after they had been driven out of 
Paradise. 

Added to all these elements of trouble, was an irreconciled feel- 
ing against the Indians, on the part of those who had been border 
settlers upon the Mohawk and the Susquehannah, and could not so 
soon forget their horrid barbarities. In the absence of courts and 
any efficient civil police, this feeling would occasionally break out 
in outrages, and on several occasions resulted in the murder of In- 
dians ; it required all the wisdom of the general and State govern- 
ments and their local agents to prevent retaliation upon the scatter- 
ed settlements of the Pioneers. 

While a storm was gathering at the west, and the Senecas, un- 
der the influences that have been named, were half inclined to act 
in concert with hostile nations in that quarter, the murder of two 
Senecas, by whites, occurred on Pine creek, in Pennsylvania. It 
highly exasperated the Senecas, and they made an immediate de- 
mand upon the Governor of Pennsylvania for redress. It was in 
the form of a message, signed by Little Beard, Red Jacket, Gisse- 



PHELPS AI^D GOPwH All's PURCHASE. 289 

hakie, Caunhesoncro, chiefs and warriors of the Seneca nation, and 
dated at "Geneseo River Flats," August 1790. After saying they 
are glad that a reward of eight hundred dollars has been offered for 
the murderers, they add: — "Brothers the two men you have killed 
were very great men, and were of the great Turtle tribe; one of 
them was a chief, and the other was to be put in the great king 
Garoughta's place, who is dead also. Brothers, you must not think 
hard of us if we speak rash, as it comes from a wounded heart, as 
you have struck the hatchet in our head, and we can't be reconciled 
until you come and pull it out. We are sorry to tell you, you have 
killed eleven of us since peace." " And now we take you by the 
hand and lead you to the Painted Post, as far as your canoes can 
come up the creek, where you will meet the whole tribe of the de- 
ceased, and all the chiefs and a number of warriors of our nation, 
where we expect you will wash away the blood of your brothers, 
and bury the hatchet, and put it out of memory, as it is yet sticking 
in our heads. 

Mr. Pickering, who was then residing at Wyoming, was either 
sent by the Governor of Pennsylvania, or the Secretary of- War to 
hold the proposed treaty, at Tioga Point, on the IGth day of No- 
vember. He met there. Red Jacket, Farmer's Brother, Col. Butler, 
Little Billy, Fish Carrier, and other chiefs of the Six Nations, and 
the Chippewa and Stockbridge Indians. They came to the coun- 
cil much enraged, and a speech of Red Jacket was well calculated 
to increase their resentments. The black cloud that hung over 
their deliberations for days, was finally driven away by the prudent 
course of Col. Pickering, and the war spirit that was kindled in 
many a savage bosom, finally quelled. This was the first time that 
the Six Nations were met in council by the general government 
after the adoption of the constitution. Col. Pickering informed 
them that the Thirteen Fires was now but one Fire, that they were 
now all under the care of the great chief. General Washington, who 
would redress their wrongs, and correct any abuses the whites had 



Note. — Money and presents of goods, it is presumed, were the principal agents of 
reconciliation. The •S'ily chiefs who demanded the council, while they assumed that 
their young warn-lors could hardly be restrained from taking summai-y vengeance upon 
the whites, intimated what they were expecting ; and they especially requested that 
the Governor should send to the council "all the property of the murderers," as it 
would " be a great .satisfaction to the famiUes of the deceased." The result' of the 
council amounted to little more than a compromising of the murders, and professions 
of fi-iendship, that were destined to remain equivocal. 



290 PHELPS AND GOEIIAM S PURCHASE. 

practiced upon them ; and that especially ti-aders among them 
would be prohibited from selling spirituous liquors. To all this 
Red Jacket and Farmer's Brother made replies, expressing much 
gratification that the "great chief of the Thirteen Fires, had opened 
his mouth to them." They made formal complaints of the manner 
in which their lands had been obtained from them, to which Col. 
Pickering replied, that their lands were their own to dispose of as 
they pleased, that the United States would only see that no frauds 
were practiced in the land treaties. 

The Six Nations .called their councils with the whites, measures 
for "brightening the chain of friendship, "and never did chains get 
rusty so quick after brightening as they did along during this critical 
period. One treaty or council was hardly over before another was 
demanded by one party or the other. In the spring of 1791, when 
the Little Turtle as the successor of Pontiac — as a leader, almost 
his equal — had perfected an alliance of the principal western na- 
tions against the United States : when expedients for reconciliation 
with them had been exhausted, and General Harmar was about to 
march against them; it was deemed of the utmost importance to 
confirm the wavering purposes of the Six Nations, and divert them 
from an alliance with the legions that threatened to break up the 
border settlements west of the Ohio, and if successful there, to in- 
volve the new settlements of the Genesee country in the contest for 
dominion. For this purpose. Colonel Pickering was again commis- 
sioned by the Secretary of War to hold a treaty. It was held at 
Newtown, (now Elmira,) in the month of June. With a good deal 
of difficulty, a pretty general attendance of the Indians was secured. 
Fortunately Col. Proctor who had turned back in a peace embassy 
to the western nations, in consequence of intimations which induced 
a conclusion that it would not only be fruitless but dangerous, had 
spent some weeks among the Senecas at Buffalo, and his visit had 
been favorable to the drawing off of the chiefs and warriors from 
Canada influence and western alliance, in the direction of Colonel 
Pickering and his treaty ground. 

The treaty was mainly successful. With all the bad inclinations 
of the Senecas at this period, and bad influences that was bearing 
upon them, there was a strong conservative influence which had a 
powerful auxiliary in the, " Governesses, " or influential women.* 

* The very common impres>ion tiiat the women had no influence in tiie councils of 



PHELPS AND GCRHAm's PURCHASE. 291 

The principal speakers were, Red Jacket and Farmer's Brother. 
Thomas Morris was present at this treaty ;* the author extracts from 
his manuscripts, spoken of in the preface to this work: — "Red 
Jacket was I suppose, at that time, about 30 or 35 years of age, of 
middle height, well formed, with an intelh'gent countenance, and a 
fine eye ; and was in all respects a fine looking man. He was the 
most graceful public speaker I have ever known ; his manner was 
most dignified and easy. He was fluent, and at times witty and sar- 
castic. He was quick and ready at reply. He pitted himself against 
Col. Pickering, whom he sometimes foiled in argument. The 
Colonel would sometimes become irritated and lose his temper; then 
Red Jacket would be delighted and shew his dexterity in taking 
adyantage of any unguarded assertion of the Colonel's. He felt a 
conscious pride in the conviction that nature had done more for 
him than for his antagonist. A year or two after this treaty, when 
Col. Pickering from Post Master General became Secretary of War, 
I informed Red Jacket of his promotion. ' Ah, ' said he, ' we began 
our public career about the same time ; he knew how to read and 
write, I did not, and he has got ahead of me ; but if I had known 
how to read and write I should have got ahead of him.' " 

The name of an early Pioneer has already been incidentally men- 
tioned, who became prominently blended in all the relations of the 
general government, and consequently in all the relations of this 
local region, with our Indian predecessors. General Israel Chapin 
was from Hatfield, Massachusetts. He was commissioned as a Cap- 
tain in the earliest military organizations of Massachusetts, after 
the commencement of the Revolution, and was in the campaign 
against Quebec ; soon after which he was advanced to the rank of 
Colonel, and at the close of the Revolution, he had attained to the 



the Six Nations — that their whole sex was regarded as mere drudges — is refuted by 
tlie recorded facts, that iu treaties with Gov. George Clinton, and in the treaty at " Big 
Tree," they turned the scale in councils. 

* Mr. Morris, then just from his law studies, with a younger brother, set out from Phil- 
adelphia, and coming via Wilkesbarre and what was called " Sullivan's path, " attended 
the treaty, visited the Falls of Niagara, and returning, made up his mind to fix liis res- 
idence at Caiiandaigua. 2.:^See sketches of early times at Canandaigua, and see also 
some further reminiscences of Mr. Moms in connection with the treaty at Newtown, 
Appendix No. 12. 

Note. — Among the Revolutionary papers of General Chapin, are many interesting 
relics. Ephraim Patch, a soldier of his company, charges in his memorandum, for 
" one pair of bufted trowsers, one pewter ba^in, one pair shoes, cue tomahawk and 



292 PHELPS AND GORHAMS PURCHASE. 

rank of Brigadier General. In addition to his services in the field, 
he was occasionally a sub contractor, or agent of Oliver Phelps, in 
procuring army supplies. Upon one occasion, as the author observes 
by his correspondence, he was requested by Mr. Phelps to obtain a 
" fine yoke of fat cattle for Gen. Washington's table." Gen. Chapin 
was in active military service during the Shay rebellion : [O^See 
"general orders,' transmitted to him by Major General Shepherd, 
Appendix, No. 13. After the close of the Revolution, he was a 
prominent managing member of an association, organized for the 
purpose of dealing in wild lands in Vermont. He was one of the 
original associates with Mr. Phelps, in the purchase of the Genesee 
country, and was chosen to come out and explore it in 1789, which 
resulted in his removal with his family to Canandaigua, in 1790. 

Soon after the organization of the general government, the Sec- 
retary of War, General Knox, saw the necessity of a local agent 
among the Six Nations, and the well earned reputation of General 
Chapin, in the Revolution, and in the important civil crisis that fol- 
lowed after it in Massachusetts, fortunately for the region with 
which he had become identified, pointed him out as a safe de- 
pository of the important trust. From his earliest residence in the 
countrv, he had been entrusted with commissions, in connection 
with Indian relations, by Gen. Knox and Col. Pickering. Soon after 
the treaty at Newtown, he was appointed to the office of Deputy 
Superintendent of the Six Nations, though the duties of his office 
ultimately, in many instances, embraced the whole northern de- 
partment. 

The letter of appointment from Gen. Knox, enjoined upon him 
the impressing upon the Indians, that it was the "firm determination 
of the President that the utmost fairness and kindness should be 
exhibited to the Indian tribes by the United States." That it was 
" not only his desire to be at peace with all the Indian tribes, but to 
be their guardian and protector, against all injustice." He was 
informed by the Secretary, that Joseph Brant had promised a visit 
to the seat of government, and instructed either to accompany him, 
" or otherwise provide for his journey in a manner perfectly agree- 
able to him." 

belt, one bayonet and belt, lost by me in the retreat from Quebec, May 6. I77fi." Jon- 
athan Clark charges that he was equally unfortunate in the hasty flight ; lie lost 
his woolen shirts, stockings, shoes, a bayonet and belt, a tomahawk, and a "pair of In- 
dian stockings. 



I 



PURCHASE. 293 

This attempt to get Brant to Philadelphia, together with a large 
representation of other chiefs and warriors of the Six Nations, and 
others not actually merged with the hostile Indians of the west, had 
been commenced in the previous winter. It succeeded very well, 
with the exception of Brant ; a large Seneca delegation, with a few 
Onondagas and Oneidas, nearly forty in all, were conducted to Phil- 
adelphia, across the country, via Wilkesbarre, by Horatio Jones 
and Joseph Smith. It was upon this occasion that the Indian chief, 
Big Tree, was a victim to the excessive hospitality that was extended 
to the delegation, at the seat of government, dymg there from the 
effects of surfeit. British hospitality and liberality was outdone ; 
President Washington won the esteem and confidence of the Indi- 
ans, and they departed with promises of continued friendship, and 
that they would undertake a friendly mission to the hostile Indians 
of the west. 

Brant was invited to the conference by the Rev. Mr. Kirkland 
and Col. Pickering, but he stood out somewhat upon his dignity, 
and intimated that if he went, it was to be in a manner more con- 
sistent with his character and position, than would be a journey 
through the country, with a drove of Indians, under the lead of in- 
terpreters. This being communicated to Gen. Knox, he took the 
hint, and thence his instructions to Gen. Chapin. Apprehensive, 
too, that Brant wanted the invitation to come directly from the seat 
of government, he addressed him an official letter, respectful and 
conciliatory, appealing to him upon the score of humanity, to lend 
his great influence toward reconciling the existing Indian difficul- 
ties, preventing the further shedding of biood, and to assist the 
government in devising measures for bettering the condition of his 
race. This drew from the chief an answer that he would start for 
Philadelphia in about thirty days, and in the meantime would con- 
sult the western nations, and be enabled to speak by authority from 
them. No statesman of the new or old world, ever penned a more 
guarded, non-committal answer in diplomacy, than was this from 
the retired chief, in the backwoods of Canada. 

The letter to the Secretary of War, was sent to Mr. Kirkland, 
at Oneida, and forwarded by him by the hands of Dr. Deodat Al- 
len, to the care of Col. Gordon, the British commanding officer at 
Fort Niagara, with a request to have it sent by private express to 
Captain Brant, at Grand River. This manner of forwardino- the 



294 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

letter proved unfortunate. Dr. Allen, knowing its contents designed- 
ly or imprudently communicated them to Col. Gordon, who acsompa- 
nied it with suggestions well calculated to promote an unfavorable 
answer. Hs also informed Captain Chev/,* a deputy Indian 
agent under Sir John Johnstone, residing at Niagara, of the 
contents of the letter, who brought all his influence to bear upon 
Brant, to prevent the journey. 

As the time of departure drew near, Gen. Chapin had Brant at- 
tended from the Grand River to Canandaigua, and from there, 
via Albany and New York to Philadelphia. The chief was at- 
tended by Israel Chapin, jr., Dr. Allen, Samuel Street, a servant of 
his own, and another provided for the party by Gen. Chapin. It 
was Brant's first appearance in the Valley of the Mohawk after 
his flight from there, and well knowing that upon his journey he 
must often encounter those of his old neighbors aj^ainst whom he had 
carried on a sanguinary warfare, he feared retribution, and only 
proceeded upon the pledges of Gen. Chapin that no insult or indig- 
nity should be offered him. It was only upon one occasion that fears 
were entertained for his safety on the route by his attendants, who 
enabled him to avoid the threatened danger. Arrived at New 
York, it would seem the whole party, about to appear at court — or 
rather, at the seat of government — doffed their backwoods ward- 
robe, and patronized a fashionable tailor. Pretty round bills were 
presented to Gen. Chapin for payment ; that for a full suit for Brant, 
would show that he at least did not appear in any less mean attire 
than was befitting an ambassador. 

The result of this visit of Brant to the scat of government, in 
detail, is already incorporated in history. Allliough in a measure 
satisfactory and productive of good, his position was by no means 
fixed, or changed by it. In the midst of feasting and civilities, the 
recipient of presents and flatteries, he was reserved and guarded ; 
put on an air of mystery ; so much so, that Gen. Knox in a letter 
to Gen. Chapin, expresses fears that some thing was said or done at 



* Captain Cliew Lad conventionally, for a wife, a half blood Tuscarora, tlie daughter 
of Capt. Mountpk'uaaiit, of tlie British Army, and sister of tlie venerable Jolm Mount- 
pleasnt, of Tuscarora, a woman who is well remembered by the rione(!rs of that re- 
gion. One of them, not a bad judge in such matters, told the author that she was 
the handsomest woman he had ever seen. Her first espousal was with a Captain El- 
mer, of the Rritisih army. Her descendants are among the many respcetable natives 
tf Tuscai'ora village. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 295 

Philadelphia that had displeased him. The truth was, that he had 
a difficult part to perform : — In the first place, he was sincerely 
tired of war, and wanted peace ; but he was bound to the British 
interests by gratitude, by present and prospective interests ; exist- 
ing upon their bounty, and apprehensive that his large landed pos- 
sessions were held by the tenure of a continued loyalty. He knew 
■ that every step he took, and every word he uttered in favor of the 
United States, or peace, would be used against him, not only to 
v/eaken his influence with the British, but also with what he proba- 
bly valued still higher, his influence with his own race. Gen. Knox 
drew from him a promise that he would visit the western nations ; 
but the promise was attended with conditions and mental reserva- 
tions, which were calculated to render the mission of little avail. 

There followed this movement, a series of fruitless embassies to 
the hostile Indians, a protracted period of alarm and apprehension. 
Repeated conferences and councils were held by Gen. Chapin with 
the Six Nations, mostly with the Senecas, as they were most in- 
clined to be allies of the western Indian confederacy. Hendricks, 
a Stockbridge chief. Red Jacket, and Cornplanter, were successively 
sent on missions to the west, under the auspices of Gen. Chapin ; 
but neither they, nor white ambassadors, succeeded in getting any 
overture better than the ultimatum that the Ohio should be the 
boundary line of respective dominion. 

There was along period of dismay and alarm, in which the new 
settlers of the Genesee country deeply and painfully participated ; 
eveiV movement in the west was regarded with anxiety ; and the 
Senecas in their midst, were watched with jealousy and distrust. 
In addition to the fruitless missions from this quarter, others were 
undertaken from the seat of government, and our military posts 
upon the Allegany, equally abortive ; in two instances, peace am- 
bassadors viere treacherously murdered before reaching treaty 
grounds. The hindrances to peace negotiations with the Indians, 
were vastly augmented by British interference. Not content with 
encouraging the Indians to hold out, and actually supplying them 
with the means of carrying on the war, on one occasion, they refused 
to let a peace embassy proceed by water via Oswego and Niagara ; 
and on another occasion, with a military police, prevented commis- 
sioners of the United States from proceeding to their destination, 
a treaty ground. And these were the acts of a nation with whom 



296 PHELPS AND GORHAjVi's PURCHASE. 

we had just made a treaty of peace ; a nation who, in a recent 
colonial crisis of their own, demanded the most stringent observance 
of the duties of neutral nations. They set up the specious and 
false pretence, that the supplying the Indians with the means of 
warring upon us, was the work of individuals, for which the gov- 
ment was not accountable. In the case of the Navy Island war, 
they insisted that our government should be responsible for individ- 
al acts. 

The office of Gen. Chapin, it may well be concluded, was no sin- 
ecure. At the head of the war department was a faithful public 
officer, and he required promptness and energy from all his subor- 
dinates. Upon Gen. Chapin, devolved the procuring of embassa- 
dors to the hostile Indians, fitting out them and their retinues, and 
holding council after council to keep the faces of the Six Nations 
turned from the west. In these troublesome times, the government 
was of course liberal with the Senecas, and Gen. Chapin was its al- 
moner. They, shrewd enough to understand the value of their con- 
tinued friendship to the United States at that critical period, were 
most of them sturdy beggars. Often they would propose councils 
wdth the ulterior motive of a feast and carousal and a " staff"* to 
support them on their return to their villages. At his home in Can- 
andaiguahe was obliged to hold almost perpetual audience with self 
constituted delegations who would profess that they were decided 
conservatives and peace makers, as long as he dispensed his bread, 
meat and whiskey freely. Lingering sometimes quite too long to 
be agreeable or essential to the purposes of diplomacy, he v.ould fit 
them out with a liberal " staff" and persuade the squaws to go back 
to their cornfields, and the Indians to their hunting camps in the 
forest. Mr. Berry at Canawagus, and Winney, the then almost 



Note. — It is not the author's purpose to give the gcBcral history of Indian diffi- 
culties at the west, at this period ; thougli it should be mentioned, for the information 
of those not convei'sant with what was then transpiiing in that quarter, tliat the In- 
dian confederacy, which had been revived, and the wars they waged, was to recover 
all of their country they had ceded to the United States south of the Ohio, which 
then contained about thirty-five thousand inhabitants. They insisted upon the Ohio 
as the boundary line, and in this, they were sustained and encouraged by the British. 
The expeditions of St. Clair and VVayne, were for enforcing previous treaties and 
punishing the Indians for their depredations committed upon those who had settled on 
ceded territory. 

* A bottle, and sometimes a keg of whiskey to which they gave this name. What 
a misnomer ! The emblem of strength and support was weakness, as has since been 
lamentably demonstrated. 



PHELPS AXD goeham's puechase. 297 

solitary resident upon the present site of Buffalo, were Indian 
traders, and acted as local sub-agents, the two first named es- 
pecialh'. Upon the General's orders, and sometimes at their own 
discretion, they would dispense meats and drinks, and formidable 
accounts thereof would be presented. Winney occupying an im- 
portant position with reference to Indian relations, kept the General 
apprised of all that was going on in that quarter. The United 
States having passed a stringent law prohibiting wholly the selling 
of liquor to the Indians and trading among them without license, an 
onerous task was imposed upon the superintendent to prevent its 
infraction. School masters, missionaries and blacksmiths, among the 
Indians had to be cared for, and their various wants supplied. In 
all difficulties that arose between the white settlers and the Indians, 
the superintendent was usually called upon to be the arbitrator. If 
the Indians stole from the white settlers, complaints were made to the 
superintendant and it seemed to have been a matter of inference 
that his office imposed upon him the duty of seeing all such wrongs 
redressed. It will surprise those who are not conversant with the 
scale of economy upon which our national affairs commenced, that 
the pay for all this, which was attended with large disbursement of 
public money, for which the most rigid accountability was deman- 
ded, was but five hundred dollars per annum. 

The season of 1794 opened with gloomy prospects: — Negotia- 
tions with the western Indians had signally failed ; one army had 
been routed, and another defeated ; Indian murders of border settlers 
at the west continued ; a war with England was not improbable ;* 
and among the fearfully anticipated results in this region, was a 
renewal of the border wars, with the active participation of the 
legions of savage warriors at the west, added to increase its hor- 

NoTE. — The following is a specimen of Mr. "Wkmev's correspondence. Prince Ed- 
vard Aras the afterwards Duke of Kent, the father of the present Queen of England. 
He had then a commission in the British'army : — 

BrFFALO Ceeek, e 23d Aug., 1792. 
" I inform General Chapin that about 79 of the Canada Indians is gone to Detroit, 
they seem to be for Warr and a number of Indians more are expected to go up, I further 
inform you that pxe Indians of this place are to go up in the first Kings vessel tha 
comes down. Prince Edward is arrived at niagara should I hear anything worth while 
to write I shall let you know. I am vour most obedient and vei-v humble servant 

C. WINNEY. 
The reader is reminded that a war between England and France had commenced 
England had prostrated American commerce by her arbitrarv orders in coancil ; and 
impressment of American seamen, (of itself a sufficient cause' of war,) was goinc on. 
19 ^ 5 o 



398 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

rors. In the month of February, Lord Dorchester had returned 
from England, and meeting a deputation from the western Indians, 
had delivered to them an inflammatory speech, asserting among 
other things, that he should regard as invalid, any acquisition of the 
United States, of Indian lands since the peace of 1783. [Appen- 
dix, No. 1 4. J This of course included all of the Genesee country. 
Following up the hostile demonstration. Gov. Simcoe, early in April, 
with a body of troops had proceeded to the west, and erected a 
Fort, at the foot of the Rapids of the Miami, far within the boun- 
daries of the United States, as acknowleged in the treaty of 1783. 
Although General Chapin, as many of the old Pioneers well re- 
member, endeavored to quiet alarm, and prevent the desertion of 
the country, he was far from feeling all the security and freedom from 
apprehension of danger, that he with good motives professed. All 
eyes were turned to him; from all the backwoods settlements, mes- 
sengers would go to Canandaigua, to learn from him all that was 
going on — to consult him as to anticipated danger; — if he had 
shown misgivings, or favored alarm, a desertion of the country would 
have ensued, the necessity of which he was laboring to obviate. 
During the previous winter he had been to Philadelphia, and deliv- 
ered to the President a message from a council of the Six Nations, 
and brought back an answer. In February he had convened a coun- 
cil at Buffalo and delivered it. It had proved satisfactory except in 
one particular — it had failed to give an explicit answer upon the 
vexed question of the disputed western boundary. He however 
distributed presents among them — of which was a large supply of 
warm winter clothing — and left them with renewed professions of 
peaceful interitions.* In April he wrote to the Secretary of War that 
he had entertained confidence that the Six Nations intended to hold a 
council with the U. States, in order to bring " about a general peace," 
but that he feared that the " inflammatory speech of Lord Dorches- 
ter," (which had been interpreted to the Indians at Buffalo Creek, 
by Col. Butler,) " with what passed between the British and Indi- 
ans on that occasion, had changed their intentions." "Captain 
Bomberry attended the council in behalf of the British government, 
and took pains on all occasions to inform the Indians that war between 

* At this period the Senecas were ahnost wholly clothed and fed by him. It was 
the only policy which could provent them from resorting to the king's store house at 
Niagara. 



PHELPS AND goeiia:\i's puechase. 299 

their government and ours, was inevitable. When T was at Buf-. 
falo Creek, Gov. Simcoe had gone to Detroit. He started for that 
place immediately on receiving Lord Dorchester's speech to the 
Indians." "The expenses of the Indians increase with the im- 
portance they suppose their friendship to be to us ; however, you 
may be persuaded that I endeavor to make use of all the economy I 
can." The letter closes as follows : — " This part of the country, be- 
ing the frontier of the State of New York, is very much alarmed at the 
present appearance of war. Destitute of arms and ammunition, the 
scattered inhabitants of this remote wilderness would fall an easy prey 
to their savage neighbors, should they think proper to attack them." 

On the 5th of May, General Chapin informed the Secretary, that 
the British had commenced the erection of a Fort at Sandusky. 
" If," says he, " it is consistent with the views of the United States, 
to put any part of this country in a state of defence, this part of 
it calls aloud for it as much as any. We are totally unprovided 
with arms and ammunition, and our enemy is within a few miles 
of us. If 12 or 1500 stand of arms could be spared from the arse- 
nals of the United States, to the inhabitants of this frontier, together 
with some ammunition, it would contribute much to their security."* 

The apprehension of danger extended over all the region west 
of Utica. In the small settlements that had been commenced in 
Onondaga, it had been enhanced by an unfortunate local occurrence: 
Early in the spring, Sir John Johnson, through an agent, had at" 
tempted to take from Albany to Canada, a boat load of groceries 
and fruit trees. A party of men waylaid the boat at Three River 
Point, and plundered the entire cargo. It was a lawless attempt of 
individuals to take the power into their own hands, and redress na- 
tional wrongs ; gratify an ill feeling against Johnson, and retaliate 
for British offences upon the Ocean, and the annoyances of Ameri- 
can Lake commerce at Oswego. An invading force from Canada 
to land at Oswego, and march upon the settlemen-ts in Onondaga, 
was threatened and anticipated. Rumors came that Johnson and 
Brant were organizing for that purpose. 

In reference to the whole complexion of things at the west, and 
in Canada, the legislature of New York had resolved upon erecting 
fortifications upon the western borders, and had appropriated 

* Some f rms and araminiition were shortly aftenvards sent to Gen. Chapin, either 
by the general or state government. 



300 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECnASE. 

£15,000 for that purpose. The commissioners under the net, were 
Generals Stephen Van Rensselaer and William North, Adjt. Gen. 
David Van Home and Baron Steuben, who was then a resident 
of Oneida county. Soon after their appointment, they had enlisted 
the co-operation of General Chapin, Charles Williamson and Robert 
Morris, as to the location of the defences. Although Baron 
Steuben came west, and corresponded with the last named gentle- 
man in reference to the matter, the author can not learn that any 
thing was finally consummated west of Onondaga. Before any 
thing could have been matured, the clouds of war had began to dis- 
perse. In the hour of alarm, the State commissioners came west 
as far as Salt Point, and ordered the erection of a block house, 
which was soon completed. The Baron mustered together the 
backwoodsmen of Onondaga, officered and inspected them ; a 
committee of public safety was organized. Before the block house 
was completed and garrisoned, on several occasions, the inhabitants 
fled to the woods with their most valuable effects. At this time, 
there was an unusual number of Indians at the British posts of Os- 
wego and Niagara ; it was inferred that they were only waiting for 
Wayne's defeat at the west, as a signal for a movement in this 
quarter. 

A new element of trouble was interposed to embarrass the rela- 
tions of the Six Nations with the United States. Cornplantery 
with a few other chiefs, had sold to the State of Pennsylvania a 
district of country along on the south shore of Lake Erie, which 
included Presque Isle. The act was strongly remonstrated against, 
and Pennsylvania was early informed that it had not the sanction 
of competent authority, and would be regarded by the Indians as a 
nullity ; but at a critical period, the authorities of Pennsylvania 
very inddiscreetly commenced an armed occupancy and surveys. 
This threatened to undo all that had been done by General Chapin 

IfoTE. — The author of the excellent History of Onondaga, from which a portion of 
the account of movements in that quarter are derived, says : — " Frederick William 
Augustus Baron de Steuben, once an aid-de-camp to Frederick the Great, King of 
Prussia, Quartermaster General, Chevalier of the Order of Merit, Grand Master of the 
Court of Hohenzollen, Colonel in the Circle of Suabia, Knight of the Order of Fideli- 
ty, Commander-in-chief of the armies of the Prince of Baden, Major General of the 
armies of the United States, and Inspector General of the same — the fortunate 
soldier of fifty battles, an admirer of freedom, the friend of Washington, the man of 
virtue, fidelity and honor — performed his last military service in reviewing a score of 
unarmed, half-clad militia, and in selecting a site for a block-house for the defence of 
the frontier of New York, in the county of Onondaga, at Salt Point, in 17^4." 



I 



PHELPS AWD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 301 

to keep the Six nations quiet. He took the advantage of a visit of 
Capt. Williamson to the seat of government, to represent the con- 
sequences, and induce the President to interfere and persuade the 
authorities of Pennsylvania to abandon the enterprise. In a letter 
to the Secretary of War, dated on the 7th of June, he had fore- 
shadowed the difficulty that was springing up in a new quarter — 
" The Cornplanter, whose steadiness and fidelity has been, until 
lately, unshaken, has, J am apprehensive, been induced to join 
their interests. He has lately returned from Niagara, loaded with 
presents. Shortly after his return to his home, he despatched run- 
ners to the different tribes of the Six Nations, requesting them to 
meet in a general council at his castle, to proceed from thence to 
Yenango ; informing them that an Indian had been killed by our 
people, and that it would be necessary for them to inquire into the 
circumstances." " I am afraid that the murder of the Indian is not 
the real cause of calling this council. The lands at Presque Isle, 
were sold to the State of Pennsylvania by Cornplanter, and a small 
party, without the consent of the nation. No division of the 
money was ever made. The Cornplanter has always denied h;:ving 
made the sale, and they have never considered it as a valid one. 
The troops sent on by the State of Pennsylvania, prove to the In- 
dians that the property is considered by the State as belonging ot 
them ; and the Cornplanter, in order to extricate himself from the 
unpleasant situation he is placed in, is perhaps desirous of inflaming 
the Six Nations against the United States." General Chapin sig- 
nified his intention of attending the council at Venango, as he had 
been invited, to thwart any mischief that might be engendered 
there. He succeeded, however, in changing the council to Buffalo 
Creek, to be held there on the 15th of June. 

Cornplanter was present at this council, and the principal speak- 
er. He led off with a speech to be transmitted to the President, in 
which he nearly threw off all disguise, and from a conservative, be- 
came an ultraist. He opened smoothly and artfully, however ; ad- 
dressing the President through Gen. Chapin, he said: — "Brother, 
I have for along time aimed at the good of both parties. I have 
paid you different compliments, as that of brother, and father, and 
now I shall call you friend. We were pleased when we heard that 
you was appointed to have chief command of the United States."' 
He closed a long speech, and one of a good deal of ability, by join- 



302 PKELPS AOT) GORHMl's PTJEOHASE. 

ing the western Indians in their ultimatum, in reference to making 
the Ohio the boundary line; thus, in fact, nullifying his own acts. 
He demanded redress for two of their people killed by the whites; 
and even had the effrontery to complain of the occupation of 
Presque Islb, adding very significantly that it might "occasion 
many accidents," and presented the Gen. with ten strings of black 
wampum. General Chapin made a judicious reply ; and in answer 
to a request that Cornplanter had made in behalf of the Six 
Nations, for him to go to Presque Isle, disclaimed any right he had 
to interfere with the acts of Pennsylvania ; but said he would ac- 
cept the invitation, and go there and give his advice. 

Accompanied by William Johnson, * two Seneca chiefs and ten 
Indians as a guard and as oars-men. General Chapin left Buffalo 
Creek on the 19th of July for Presque Isle, where he arrived on the 
24th. Their slow progress had been owing to head winds that 
frequently obliged them to camp on shore and await iheir subsiding. 
There were then no Indian or white occupants at Presque Isle. A 
company of troops and a corps of surveyors were stationed at Le 
Boeuf, on French Creek, 16 miles distant, to which place the em- 
bassy plodded their way thi'ough the woods on foot. A Captain 
Denny connnanded troops at Le Boeuf, and Mr. Ellicottf was at 
the head of the surveyors. The arrival of the ambassador of peace 
and his dusky retinue, was honored by the discharge of cannon. 
Runners had preceded the party, and on its arrival, a considerable 
number of Indians were collected. General Chapin delivered to 
Messrs. Denny and Ellicott , a message from the chiefs he had met 
at Buffalo Creek, which contained a demand for the suspension of 
surveys and a withdrawal of the troops ; a day or two was spent in 
making speeches, and in friendly intercourse with the Indians. The 
council, or interview, terminated in a promise from General Chapin 
of a general treaty to settle not only that, but all existing ditlicul- 
ties, and the representatives of Pennsylvania signified a willingness 
to abide by the result. Before leaving Le Boeuf, General Chapin 
despatched a letter to the Secretary of War, in which he said, that 

* Johnson was a trader and interpreter in the British i)iterests, residing at Buffalo 
Creelc. When tlie Holland Company purchased, he owned, by deed of gift from the 
I^diiins, almost the entire site of the present city of Buffalo! A compromise gave 
him 45 acres, now in the heart of the citv, and a tract of wild land near the city. He 
had been a Butler Ranger. He died in 1807, 

t Either Joseph or Benjamin Ellicott. 



PHELPS AND GOKIIAm's PUKCHASE. 303 

" although the minds of the Six Nations are much disturbed at the 
injuriss they say they have sustained, they are still opposed to war, 
and wish, if possible, to live in peace with the United States. 
They are much opposed to the establishing of a garrison at this 
place, as they say it will involve them in a war with the hostile 
Indians. * They are likewise much displeased with the having 
those lands surveyed, as they say they have not been legally pur- 
chased." In this letter. General Chapin earnestly recommended a 
general treaty, as the only means which could keep the Six Nations 
aloof from the dangerous confederacy at the west. 

To the letter of General Chapin, the Secretary answered on the 
25th of July, saying : — " Your ideas of a conference are adopted. 
It will be held at Canandaigua on the 8th of September. Colonel 
Pickering will be the commissioner, to be assisted by you in all re- 
.spects. Notify the Six Nations that their father, the President of 
the United States, is deeply concerned to hear of any dissatisfac- 
tion existing in their minds against the United States, and there- 
fore invites them to a conference, for the purpose of removing all 
causes of misunderstanding, and establishing a permanent peace 
and friendship between the United States and the Six Nations." 

No time was lost by General Chapin in disseminating the invi- 
tation among the Indians; holding "talks" and councils with them, 
personally, in their villages. A crisis was at hand ; Gen. Wayne 
was marching into the Indian country ; legions of the western and 
southern Indians were assembling to give him battle ; unless the 
Six Nations were diverted, there was strong probability that they 
would be with them ; and if Gen. Wayne was defeated, there was 
the additional fearful probability that an attempt of the confederates 
would follow, to address the alleged wrongs of the Six Nations, by 
bringing the war to this region. Runners, or messengers, were 
despatched to the seat of government ; frequent communications 
passed betwen Generals Knox and Chapin, and frequent speeches 
came from the President, through General Knox, to the Six Nations. 
On the 30th of July, General Chapin reported progress, and inform- 
ed General Knox that the complexion of things at the west looked 
discouraging ; that although he entertained hopes of a general at- 



* Oblige them to join the hostile Indians, it is presumed, is the meaning intended 
to be conveyed. 



304 PHELPS AIST) GORHAMS PURCHASE. 

tendance at the treaty, he had to stem a strong tide of opposition, 
principally instigated by the British. " Captain O. Bail does not 
feel satisfied respecting his villanous conduct in making sale of the 
lands at Presque Isle, which gives general dissatisfaction to the Six 
JVations, as they were not informed of his proceedings. The In- 
dians' enmity to him, induces him to be more attached to the 
British, as they tolerate every kind of such conduct to disturb the 
Indians and bring about their own purposes." In this letter, the 
General mentions that the warriors on the Allegany had been per- 
suaded that Wayne would march in this direction, and had re- 
moved their old men, women, and children, to a new location on 
he Cattaraugus Creek, with the ultimate intention, as he thought, 
of crossing the Lake to Canada. 

In the forepart of September, General Chapin employed William 
Ewing, whom the reader will find alluded to in connection with 
reminiscences of Pioneer settlement on the Genesee river, to repair 
to Buffalo creek and Canada, use his influence in getting the Indi- 
ans in that quarter to attend the treaty, and watch and counteract 
as far as possible, British interference. A letter from Mr. Ew'ing 
to General Chapin after his return, contains so much of the cotem- 
porary history of that period, that the author has inserted it entire 
in the Appendix, No. 15. 

The most ample provisions were made for the treaty ; while the 
Secretarj^ of War would caution against the unnecessary expendi- 
ture of public money, he transmitted funds liberally, and ample 
stores of Indian goods, hquors, tobacco, &c., were purchased in 
New York, sent up the Hudson, and started upon the long and tedious 
water transit, while at Canandaigua, the local superintendent, laid 
in provisions and prepared to fulfil a promise to the Indians, that he 
would " hang on big kettles." Col. Pickering wrote to General 
Chapin to have quarters provided for him where he could entertain 
friends ; that he ha.l sent on liquors, provisions, tea and coffee, for 
a private establishment. 

The Indians gathered tJirdily. Col. Pickering anticipating this, 
did not arrive until after the 20th of September. In a letter to the 
Secretary, dated on the 17th, Gen. Chapin mentions a rumor, that 
Wayne had defeated the Indians. In reference to the treaty he 
says : — " Since the Indians were first invited to it, the British have 
endeavored if possible to prevent their attendance, and have used 



PHELPS AND GOEHAl^l's PUKOHASE. 305 

every endeavor to persuade them to join the hostile Indians, till at 
last they found the Indians would not generally join in the war, 
the Governor told them in the council at Fort Erie, that they might 
attend the treaty, and if anything was given them by the Ameri- 
cans, to take it." " The Indians will generally attend the treaty in 
my opinion, or especially those of the best part of them ; such as 
are generall}' in council, and the best friends to the United States." 

Previous to the treaty, or Wayne's victory, a little light had broke 
in to the darkness that pervaded. The prospect of a general war 
with England was lessened. Gen. Knox wrote to Gen. Chapin in 
June, that the "British conduct in the West Indies," and Lord 
Dorchester's speech had "rendered it pretty conclusive^that last au- 
tumn the ministry of Great Britain entertained the idea of making 
war upon us. It is however, nov/ pretty certain that they have 
altered or suspended that intention. This conclusion is drawn from 
the orders of the 8th of January, and the general opinion enter- 
tained in Great Britain." Favorable as were these indications, 
they had no immediate effect upon British agents in this quarter. 

It was not until near the middle of October, that a sufficient num- 
ber of Indians were collected at Canandaigua, to warrant the com- 
mencement of business. About that period General Chapin wrote 
to the Secretary, that he should " endeavor to make use of the 
shortest ceremony in procuring supplies, but the number of Indians 
is greater than I expected, and the expenses also." It is apparent 
from the cotemporary records, that the Six Nations, a large propor- 
tion of them at least, hung back from this treaty, even until they 
began to hear of Wayne's victory, from such of their number as 
had been in the fight, as allies of the confederates ; and in fact they 
did not assemble at Canandaigua, in any considerable numbers, un- 
til Wayne's success was fully confirmed, and they were clearly con- 
vinced that the fortunes of war had turned decidedly against those 
with whom they would have been fully allied, if Wayne had met 
with no better success than had his predecessors, Harmar and St. 
Clair. 

The general proceedings, and favorable termination of Picker- 
ing's treaty of 1794, at Canandaigua, are already incorporated in 
history. Wayne's victory, and the success of the treaty, which 
was in a great measure consequent upon it, were the commence- 
ment of events that finally gave a feeling of security to this region, 



306 PHELPC AUB GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

and enabled settlements and improvements to go on, unannoyed by 
the alarms and prospects of war and invasion. There was a lin- 
gerinr; state of uncertainty after the two fortunate events; for 
months rumors came, that" the western confederates were again 
making a stand, and refusing any compromise ; indications in Can- 
ada, and at the British posts at the west, favored the conclusion of 
British alliance with them ; but the news at last came, that the far 
western nations were retiring across the Mississippi, discomfited, 
and chagrined with an alledged breach of faith on the part of the 
British, fn not coming to the rescue when they were hotly pressed 
by Wayne — in shutting the gates of their fortress against them, 
when his iron hail was strewing the ground with their warriors ; * 
and finally, that the nations more immediately interested in the con- 
test, had signified their willingness to do what was soon after con- 
summated at the treaty of Grenville. Jay's treaty followed, Oswego 
and Niagara were surrendered, and years of peace and security 
followed, and continued until the war of 1812. 

The Hon. Thomas Morris, it will have been seen, was a citizen 

of Canandaigua. He was present at the treaty. He tnus speaks 

of it in his manuscript reminiscences : — " For some months prioi 

to the treaty at Canandaigua, the Indians would come among us 

painted for war ; their deportment was fierce and arrogant : such 

as to create the belief that they would not be unwiHing to take up 

the hatchet against us. From certain expressions attributed to 

Gov. Simcoe, in connection with his conduct at Sodus Bay, it was 

believed that the British had taught the Indians to expect that Gen. 

Wayne would be defeated, in which event they might easily have 

persuaded the Six Nations, to make common cause with the hostile 

Indians, and our settlements would have been depopulated. Such 

were the apprehensions entertained at the time of an Indian war on 

our borders, that in several instances, farmers were panic struck, and 

with the dread of the scalping knife before them, had pulled up 

stakes, and with their families, were on their way to the East. Ar^ 

rived at Canandaigua, they found that I was painting my house, 

and making improvements about it ; believing that I possessed better 

information on the subject than they did, their fears became quieted, 

» Mr. Morris says that the hostile Indians at the west, sent runners to the Canandai- 
gua treaty with a full account of their disaster, which closed by saying : — Auu ouf 
brethren," the British, looked on, and gave us not the least assistance.' 



PHELPS AJST> GOKHAM's PURCHASE. 30T 

and they retraced their steps back to then' habitations. After the 
defeat of the hostile Indians, those of the Six Nations became com- 
pletely cowed ; and, from that time all apprehensions of a war with 
them vanished. 

Brant has almost been lost sight of in the progress of this narra- 
tive ; though he was by no means inactive. He was in correspond- 
dence with General Chapin, on terms of personal friendship with 
him, receiving from his hands considerable sums of money in pay- 
ment for promised services; but it is impossible to avoid the con- 
clusion that he was insincere and faithless. His own partial biog- 
rapher. Col. Stone, places him in arms, with an hundred Mohawks, 
against St. Clair, and gives a letter of his to Gov. Simcoe, in which 
he acknowledges the receipt of ammunition from the British, and 
said he was about to join his camp of warriors at " Point Appineu,"* 
to act in co-operation with Cornplanter in an attack upon Le Boeuf. 
In short, with the exception of a growing distaste for war, of which 
he had had a surfeit, his relations to the British government, and 
attachment to its interests, were not materially changed, until grow- 
ing out of land difficulties in Canada, he had a quarrel with the 
colonial authorities. Cornplanter finally made some amends for 
the conduct of which Gen. Chapin so very justly complained. 

The visit of General Chapin to the disputed territory in Penn- 
sylvania, as a mediator, and the fortunate turn he gave to affairs by 
his judicious suggestion of a general treaty, was an important event 
not only to this region, but to our whole country. It diverted the Six 
Nations from marching against Wayne ; had they been in main force 
with the confederates, the result of the contest, in all probability, 
would have been adverse. Little Turtle would have been aided 
by the counsels of "older and better" warriors than himself; the 
ancient war cry of the Iroquois that had so often spread dismay and 
terror among the confederates, would have been equally potent in 
rallying them in a common cause of their race. In a letter to Gen. 
Knox, dated in December, after the treaty, in which he congratu- 
lates the Government through him of the favorable turn of affairs, 
and gives the assurance of a settled state of things in this region, 
General Chapin says : — " I\Iy journey to Le Boeuf, I shall ever 
beUeve was the means of preventing the Six Nations from lending 

* Point Abino on the Canada side of Lake Erie. 



308 PHELPS AI^D GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

their assistance to their western brothers, as they term them ; and 
in which I got my present sickness from which I am fearful I shall 
never recover. But believe me, Sir, to be useful to the frontier upon 
which I live, and my country in general, has been the prevaiHng 
object of my pursuits. " 

Other than the mutual pledges of peace and friendship which 
was made at the treaty, the settling of the lands about Presque Isle 
was the important consummation. This was the result of a com- 
promise. By the treaty at Fort Stanwix, the western boundary of 
the Senecas was a line due south from the mouth of Bufialo creek 
to the Pennsylvania line ; thus cutting them off from Lake Erie and 
taking from them all the territory that is now embraced in Chautauque 
county, besides a strip which is now in Cattaraugus, and a gore in 
Erie county. This was restored, making their western boundary 
the shore of Lake Erie, and a strip of land on the Niagara River, 
an addition to what had been ceded to Great Britain, was also res- 
tored. The Senecas surrendered all claim to a smaller amount of 
land — the triangle at Presque Isle. 

In the Maryland Journal of Nov. 5th, 1794, there is a letter dated 
at Whitestown, in this state, which says that " Wm. Johnston a 
British Indian agent " was present at the treaty and secretly at- 
tempted a diversion of the Indians. The author finds bnt little of 
this in General Chapin's correspondence with Gen. Knox, but he 
infers that something of the kind occurred. In a letter to Brant 
General Chapin speaks of the sudden departure of Johnston from 
the treaty ground, as if he had advised it in consequence of a fear 
that some outrage would be committed upon him by citizens in at- 
tendance ; as if he had interfered, and a summary punishment was 
threatened. 

The forebodings of General Chapin, in his last letter to General 
Knox, in reference to his declining health, unhappily for his country, 
and especially the local region where he had been so useful, was des- 
tined to be realized. He continued to decline, under the effects of 
what is presumed to have been in some form the then prevailing 
disease of the country, which finally terminated in dropsy. He 
died on the 7th of March, 1795, aged 54 years. In the discharge 
of his official duties, he had won the esteem and confidence of the 
government, testimonials of which were given before and after his 
death. Apprized of his illness, his friend Colonel Pickering, who had 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 309 

succeeded Gen. Knox as Secretary of War, carefully consulted the 
eminent physician, Dr. Rush, and communicated his advice by 
letter ; and equal solicitude was felt throughout a large circle of ac- 
quaintance. In all this local region, his death was mourned as that 
of a public benefactor ; and no whei'e more sincerely than among the 
Indians, whose esteem he had won by his uniform kindness and 
strict regard for their welfare. Soon after his death a large num- 
ber of chiefs assembled at Canandaigua, and in public council de- 
monstrated their high sense of the loss they had sustained, Red 
Jacket, addressing Captains Israel Chapin and Parrish, said : — 

" Brothers — I wish you to pay attention to what I have to say. 
We have lost a good friend ; the loss is as great to us as to you. 
We consider that we of the Six Nations, as well as the United 
States, have met with a great loss. A person that we looked up to 
as a father ; a person appointed to stand between us and the United 
States, we have lost, and it gives our minds great uneasiness. 
He has taken great pains to keep the chain of friendship bright be- 
tween us and the United States ; now that he is gone, let us pre- 
vent that agreeableness and friendship, which he has held up between 
us and the United States, from failing. 

"Brothers — It has been customary among the Six Nations, 
when they have lost a great chief, to throw a belt in his place after 
he is dead and gone. We have lost so many of late, that we are 
destitute of a belt, and in its place we present you with these strings, 
[9 strings black and white wampum.] 

•' Brothers — As it is a custom handed down to us by our fath- 
ers, to keep up the good old ancient rules, now we visit the grave 
of our friend, we gather leaves and strew them over the grave, and 
endeavor to banish grief from our minds, as much as we can." [14 
strings black and white wampum.] 

Alter this the chiefs adopted a message to be sent to the Presi- 
dent, informing him that the "person whom he had appointed for 
us to communicate our minds to, has now left us and gone to ano- 
ther world. He with the greatest care communicated our minds to 
the great council fire." They concluded the message by recapitu- 
lating the services that had been rendered them by Captain Israel 
Chapin, his son ; reminded the President that he is conversant with 
all the relations of his father with them, and request that he may 
succeed to his place. 



310 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

The President being of the same mind of the Indians, the ap- 
pointment of Captain Israel Chapin soon followed. In announcing 
to him his appointment, Mr. Pickering says : — " The affairs of the 
Six Nations v/ill henceforward be managed with much less trouble 
than formerly. The treaty made with them last fall, must supersede 
all pre-existing cause of complaint. The treaty entered into by Mr. 
Jay with Great Britain, will, I trust, rid you of all such embarrass- 
ments, as heretofore have sprung from British influence, and peace 
with the western Indians, is now in fair prospect. The hostile na- 
tions have all sent in their chiefs to Gen. Wayne, to sue for peace ; 
and have agreed upon a treaty, to be held at his head quarters, about 
the first of June next. So your principal concern will be to pro- 
tect the tribes under your superintendence from injury and imposi- 
tion, which too many of our own people are disposed to practice 
upon them ; and diligently to employ all the means under your di- 
rection, to promote their comfort and improvement." 

As the Secretary suggested, the principal difficulties with the Six 
Nations had been adjusted, but a vast amount of labor and responsi- 
bility still devolved upon the local agency. Annuities were to be 
paid, not only the general ones, but special ones, to a large num- 
ber of chiefs and warriors, who had recommended themselves to 
favor ; schools and school-masters were to be looked to ; blacksmiths 
were to be employed and superintended in all the principal Indian 
villages ; depredations upon Indian lands were to be prevented, and 
frequent difficulties between Indian and white settlers were to be 
adjusted ; Indians killed by the white men were to be paid for.* 
The Indians had learned to lean upon the local Superintendent with 
all the dependence of childhood. All these arduous duties seem to 
have been faithfully discharged until 1802, when he was removed 
from the agency. His successor was Captain Callender Irwin, of 
Erie, Pennsylvania. The change would seem to have been one 
of an ordinary political character, and not from any cause that im- 
plicated his private or official character. 

In connection with these events, it should be mentioned that 



* Killing was a matter of business compromise : — " Received of Israel Cbapin, 
agent of Indian affairs for the Six Nations, two hundred dollars, to sati.sfy the widow 
and children of a deceased Indian, who was murdered at Venango, in 1795, by a sol- 
dier of that garrison. his 

Witness, \Vm. Johnston, Jasper Pan-iah. JOHN X O'BAIL. 

Canaudaigua, April 8, 1797. mark. 



PHELPS AND GOEIIAm's PUKCHASE. 311 

the Six Nations found in the Yearly Meeting of the society of 
Friends of Philadelphia early and faithful guardians of their inter- 
ests and welfare. A committee of their number hospitably enter 
tained their chiefs when they visited Philadelphia ; at the especial 
request of the chiefs, a committee attended the treaty of "94, at 
Canandaigua. For almost half a century there has been a standing 
committee of that Yearly Meeting, having especial care of the 
Six Nations. In 1796 this committee, availing themselves of a 
visit of Jasper Parrish to the seat of government, prevailed upon 
him to visit the Indians and tender to them their assistance in a 
plan to instruct them in " husbandry and the most neccessary arts 
of civil life. " They soon after established schools, sent men and 
women among them to teach them farming and house work, and 
built mills for them, in at least one locality. 

The sons of General Israel Chapin were : — Thaddeus, who was 
an early merchant in Canandaigua, and subsequently, a large farmer 
near the village ; Israel, the official successor of his father, who was 
the founder of what was called " Chapin's Mills, " a few miles north 
of Canandaigua, on the Palmyra road ; the only survivors of his 
family, are, Mrs. John Greig, and a maiden sister ; Henry, who was 
an early merchant in Buffalo, a resident of Ohio ; and George, a 
farmer near Canandaigua. A daughter of General Chapin, was 
the wife of Benjamin Wells, who came to Canandaigua with his 
father-in-law, in 1789. The surviving sons of Mr. Wells are, 
Walter Wells, of Webster, Monroe county, Benjamin Wells, of 
Conhocton, and Clement Wells, of Canandiagua. A daughter 
became the wife of Jonas Williams, who was one the founders of 
the village of Williamsville, Erie co. 



JASPER PARRISH. 



His family were emigrants from the state of Connecticut to the 
head waters of the Delaware river in this State, where they were 
residing on the breaking out of the border wars. In 1778, when 
but eleven years of age, the subject of this sketch was with his 
father, who was six miles from home, assisting a family of back- 
woodsmen to move nearer the settlement, where they would be less 
exposed. Attacked by a small party of Munsee Indians, they were 
made captives. The father was taken to Niagara, and after being a 



312 PHELPS AND GORHAjM's PUECIIASE. 

captive two years, was exchanged and enabled to rejoin his family. . 
The i)rotector of young Jasper, was a war chief, by whom he 
v/as well ti'eated. After remaining a while at the " Cook House," 
he was taken to Chemung. When entering the Indian village, the 
war party that accompanied him set up the war shout, when a posse 
of Indians and Indian boys salhed out and met them ; pulling the 
young prisoner from the horse he was riding, they scourged him 
with whips and beat him cruelly with the handles of their toma- 
hawks — subjected him to one form of their gauntlet — until his 
master humanely rescued him. He was soon after sold by his 
master to an Indian family of Delawares, and taken to reside with 
them at their village on the south side of the Delaware river, where 
he remained during the year 1779, suffering a good deal during the 
winter for the want of warm clothing, and in consequence of the 
scanty fare of the Indians. To inure him to cold, the Indians com- 
pelled him almost daily, to strip and plunge into the ice and water 
of the river. Adopted by the family who had become his owners, 
he was kindly treated, and accompanied them in all their hunting 
and fishing excursions. 

He was at Newtown with his captors, when Sullivan invaded 
their country, and used to relate what transpired there : — As the 
army approached Newtown point, a large body of Indians collected 
four miles below to make an attack, after having placed their squaws, 
prisoners and baggage in a safe place. They soon found they could 
not stand their ground, and sent runners to the squaws directing 
them to retreat up the river to Painted Post, where they followed 
them soon after. The whole made a hasty march to Niagara, via 
Bath, Geneseo and Tonawanda, The family to whom Parrish be- 
longed were of this retreating party. In a short time after their 
arrival, nearly the whole of the Six Nations were encamped on the 
plain, in the vicinity of the Fort. They subsisted upon salted pro- 
visions during the winter, dealt out to them from the British garrison, 
and great numbers died in consequence. To induce them to dis- 
perse and go back to their villages on the Genesee river, or go out 
on scouting parties, the British officers offered them an increased 
bounty for American scalps. 

Before winter young Parrish was sold for twenty dollars, to Cap- 
tain David Hill, "a large fine looking Mohawk Indian," a relation 
of Joseph Brant, who conducted him to his tent and gave him to 



PHELPS Amy GORHAMS PURCHASE. SIS 

understand that he would thereafter live with him. He disliked 
the change of naasters at the time : it involved the necessity of 
learning another Indian language, and he had become attached to thei 
Delaware family ; but it all turned out for the best. He resided in 
the family of Captain Hill for five years, in all of which time he 
was kindly treated, and well provided for. His time was chiefly 
spent in accompanying the Indians' in travelling excursions, hunting, 
fishing, and when put to labor, but light tasks were imposed upon 
him. Soon after he was purchased by Captain Hill, a general 
council of the British and Indians took place at Fort Niagara ; upon 
which occasion Capt. Hill took his young American captive into the 
midst of an assembly of chiefs, and adopted him as his son, going 
through the ceremony of placing a large belt of wampum around 
his neck. After which an old chief took him by the hand and 
made a speech, as is customary on such occasions, accompanying it 
with a great deal of solemnity of manner. Then the chiefs ai'ose 
and all shook hands with the adopted captive. 

On one occasion, while with the Delaware family at Niagara, he 
came near being the victim of the British bounty for scalps. Left 
alone with some Indians who were on a carousal, he overheard one 
propose to another, that they should kill the "youi:^g Yankee," take 
his scalp to the Fort and sell it for rum. In a few minutes one of 
them took a large brand from the fire and hurled it at his head, but 
being on the alert, he dodged it and made his escape. The Indians 
pursued him, but it being dark he was enabled to avoid them. 

In May, 1780, Brant founded a village of Mohawks near the pres- 
ent village of Lewiston, to which Capt. Hill removed. There Par- 
rish remained until the close of the Revolution. He travelled with 
his Indian father a good deal among other Indian tribes, by whom 
he was always well treated. At the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1784, 
he with other prisoners, were surrendered in accordance with treaty 
stipulations. He immediately joined his father's family, whom he 
found in Goshen, Orange county. Having nearly lost the use of 
his own language, he attended school for about one year, which was 
all the opportunity for acquiring an education he ever enjoyed, 
other than what a strong native intellect enabled him to acquire in 
his intercourse with the world. 

He was employed by Mr. Pickering in his Indian treaty in 1790, 
and '91, and his qualifications as an interpreter, together with his 
20 



814 PHELPS Am) G0KHA3l's PURCHASE. 

character for faithfulness and integrity, coming to the knowledge 
of the then Secretary of War, General Knox, he employed him in 
the Indian department in 1792, giving him a letter to General Cha- 
pin, with whom he became associated as interpreter for tlie Six 
Nations. In all the crisis of Indian difficulties, he was the active 
co-operatcr of General Chapin, and contributed much to the final 
adjustment of them. A " winged Mercury," in the earliest years 
his appointment after he was now here, and now there ; alter- 
nating between the seat of government, at Philadelphia, Buflalo 
Creek, Genesee River, Onondaga, Oneida and Canandaigua ; the 
interpreter at councils, and the bearer of messages. The captive 
boy of the Indian wigwams, becoming a man, remembered only the 
virtues and kindnesses of his captors — not the wrongs they had 
inflicted upon him or his countrymen — and was the faithful inter- 
preter of their complaints and grievances to him, whom they called 
their "Father, the great chief of the Thirteen Fires" — Washing- 
ton. In 1803 he had the additional appointment of local Indian 
agent, and continued to hold both offices, through all the changes 
of the administration of the general government, down to the 
second term of General Jackson's administration. 

He retained to the close of his life, a strong attachment to the 
Indians, as was the case generally with liberated captives ; and by 
means of his position, and the influence he had acquired with 
them, was enabled to render them essential service ; to assist in 
ameliorating their condition, by introducing among them the Chris- 
tian religion, schools and agricultural pursuits. While a prisoner, 
he acquired the Mohawk language, and before the close of his life, 
he spoke that of five of the Six Nations with great fluency. 
Captain Parrish died at his residence in Canandaigua, July 12th, 
1836, in the 69th year of his age. 

He married in early life, a daughter of General Edward Paine, 
one of the Pioneers of the western Reserve, and the founder of 
Painesville. She died in 1837. His surviving sons are, Isaac, a 
farmer on the Lake shore, near Canandaigua ; Stephen and Ed- 
ward, residents of the village of Canandaigua. One of his daughters 
became the wife of Ebenezer S. Cobb, of Michigan, who was lost 
with the ill-fated Erie, near Dunkirk, in 18-il ; another, the wife 
of Peter Townsend, of Orange county ; and another, the wife of 
William W. Gorham, of Canandaigua. 



PHELPS AISTD GOEHA^m's PUECHASE. 315 



CHAPTER IV. 



ATTEMPT OF GOV. SIMCOE TO BREAK UP THE SETTLEMENTS OF THE 
GENESEE COUNTRY. 



The reader has already learned, generally, what was the temper 
and bearing of the British authorities in Canada, touching the early 
Pioneer movements in the Genesee country. A British and Indian 
alliance, a connected movement, having in view the re-possession 
of the country, was with much difficulty but barely prevented. 
In all the controversy — or pending the issue of the whole matter — 
there was, other than what may have transpired at the west, but 
one overt act, in pursuance of British pretensions and threats. This 
was an actual invasion, by a British armed force, of the Genesee 
country, at Sodus Bay. 

Previous to coming in possession of the valuable manuscripts of 
the late Thomas Morris, the author had drawn up for this work, an 
account of the event, the materials for which were derived prin- 
cipally from the papers of Mr. Williamson. Mr. Morris having 
included it in his reminiscences, it being a matter, " all of which 
he saw, and a part of which he was," his history of the transaction 
is substituted : — 

" Gov. Simcoe had, from his first assuming the government of 
Upper Canada, evinced the greatest jealousy of the progress of the 
settlement of our western country ; he was even said to have 
threatened to send Captain Williamson to England in irons, if he 
ever ventured to come into Canada. In 1794, Capt. Williamson 
had commenced a settlement at Sodus Bay. 

In the month of August of that year, Lieut. Sheaffe, of the 
British army, (now Major General Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe, who, 
during the last war, commanded at the battle of Queenston, after 
the death of Gen. Brock,) was sent by Governor Simcoe, with a 



316 riiELPS Ais^D goeham's purchase. 

protest to be delivered to Captain \Villiamson, protesting against 
the prosecution of the settlement ot' Sodus, and all other Ameri- 
can settlements beyond the old French line, during the inexecution 
of the treaty that terminated the Revolutionary war. Finding 
there only an agent of INIr. Williamson's, (a Mr. Molfat, who is yet 
living,) Lieut. SheaiTe informed him of the nature of his mission, 
and requested him to make it known to Capt. Williamson, and to 
inform him that he would return in ten days, wlien he hoped to 
meet Capt. Williamson there. Mr. Moffat came to me at Canan- 
daigua, to acquaint me with what had taken place, and induce me 
to accompany him to Bath, to confer with Capt. Williamson in re- 
lation to this very extraordinary protest. I accordingly went to 
Bath, and it was agreed between Capt. Williamson and myself, that 
we would both meet Lieut. Shealfe at Sodus, at the time he had ap- 
pointed to be there. Accordingly, on the day named by Lieut, 
Sheatle, we were at Sodus ; and shortly after our arrival there, we 
perceived on the lake, a boat rowed by about a dozen British 
soldiers, who. after landing their oilicer, were directed by him to 
pull oft' some distance in the bay, and remain there until he made a 
signal to return for him. Capt. Williamson, in consequence of the 
threats imputed to Gov. Simcoe, in relation to himself, did not tiiink 
proper to expose himself unnecessarily to any act of violence, if 
any such should have been meditated against him. He therefore 
requested me to receive Lieut. Sheaffe on the beach, and to ac- 
company him to the log cabin where Capt. Williamson was, with a 
brace of loaded pistols on his table. The ordering his men to re- 
main at a distance from the shore, shows that the precaution that 
had been taken, though proper at the time, was unnecessary, 
and that no resort to force was intended. The meeting between 
the Lieut, and Mr. Williamson, was friendly ; they had known each 
other before ; and while in the same service, had marched through 
some part of England together. The Lieut, handed to Capt. Wil- 
liamson the protest, and was desired by the Capt. to inform Gov- 
Simcoe that he would pay no attention to it, but prosecute his set- 
tlement, the same as if no such paper had been delivered to him ; 
that if any attempt should be made forcibly to prevent him from 
doing so, that attempt would be repelled by force. Lieut. Sheafle 
having, during the interview between them, made some allusion to 
Capt. Williamson having once held a commission in the British 



PHELPS AND GORHAJi's PUECHA6E. 3 IT 

army, he replied, that while in the service of the Crown, he had 
faithfully performed his duty ; that having since renounced his al- 
legiance to that Crovm, and became a citizen of the United States, 
his adopted country, having both the ability and the inclination, 
would protect him in his rights, and the possession of his property. 
I asked Lieut. Sheaffe if he would be so good as to explain what 
was meant by the old French line, where it ran, and what portion 
of our country we were forbidden in Gov. Simcoe's protest, to oc- 
cupy. He replied, that he was merely the bearer of the paper ; that 
by the orders of his superior officer, he had handed it to Capt. Wil- 
liamson ; that no explanation had been given to him of its purport, 
nor was he authorized to give any. After about half an hour, I 
accompanied him to the beach, where he had landed ; and on a 
signal having been made by him, his boat returned for him, and he 
departed. This is what my father, in his letter of the 10th of Sep- 
tember, 1794, alludes to, and terms a treaty, and for which he hopes 
that Simcoe will get a rap over the knuckles from his master. So 
many years have elapsed since the complaints made both by the 
British and our own Government, were adjusted by negotiation, 
that you may be at a loss to know what Governor Simcoe meant 
when he spoke of the inexecution of the treaty that terminated our 
Revolutionary struggle. The complaint on the part of Great 
Britain, was, that those parts of the treaty which required that 
those States in which British subjects were prevented by law, from 
recovering debts due to them prior to the Revolution, had been re- 
pealed, — as by the treaty, they ought to have been, — and also, 
that British property had been confiscated, since the period limited 
in the treaty for such confiscations, and no compensation had 
been made to the injured parties. On our part, the complaint was, 
that after the cessation of hostilities, negroes and other property, 
were carried away by the British army, contrary to stipulations en- 
tered into by the preliminary treaty of peace. The British retain- 
ed possession of the posts on our borders, and within our bounds, 
until an amicable settlement of these difficulties, and which settle- 
ment, I think, took place in 1796." 

Note. — The convereation that pa.ssecl between Mr. 'Williamson and Lieut. Sheaffe, 
as copied from Mr. Williamson's autograph, is a.s follows : — 

Lieut. She.\ffe. — "lam commissioned by Governor Simcoe to deliver the papers, 
and require an answer." 

Me. Williamsox. — "I am a citizen of the United States, and under then* authori- 



318 PHELPS AND GOEIIA]Vl's PUECHASE. 

The news of this hostile demonstration on the part of one, seem- 
ing to act by authority from the British government, was soon 
spread through all the backwoods settlements of the Genesee coun- 
try. At no period since the settlement commenced, had the con- 
duct of the Indians so much favored the worst apprehensions. Har- 
mar and St. Clair had in turn been defeated and repulsed by the 
western Indians, and the issue that Wayne had made with them 
was pending ; his defeat being not improbable, in view of the for- 
midable enemy with which he had to contend. Evidences of 
British aid to the western Indians, against Genei'al Wayne, was 
furnished by returning adventurers from the west, and every travel- 
ler that came through the wilderness from Niagara, confirmed the 
worst suspicions of all that was going on at that focus of British 
machinations, against the peace of the defenceless border settlers. 
It was, too, ominous of danger, that the Senecas in their immedi- 
ate neighborhood, in their midst, it may almost be said, had armed and 
moved off in considerable numbers, to become confederates against 
General Wayne, bearing upon their persons the blankets, the broad 
cloths, calicoes, and war decorations, served to them from the king's 
store house at Niagara, by the hands of one whose very very name* 
was a terror, for it was mingled Avith the chiefest horrors, and 
the darkest deeds of the Border Wars of the Revolution. Wayne 
defeated, it was but natural to suppose that the Senecas who had gone 
west and made themselves confederates against him, would bring 
back with them upon their war path, allies from the western tribes, to 
renew the bloody scenes that had been enacted upon the banks of the 
Mohawk and Susquehannah. Such being the cotemporary state 



ty and protection, I possess these lands. I kno-n- no right that his Britannic Majesty, 
or Gov. Simcoe, has to interfere, or molest me. The only allegiance I owe to any 
power on earth, is to the i nitcd States ; and so far from being intimidated by threats 
trora people I have no connection with, I shall proceed with my improvements; and 
nothing but superior foixe shall make me abandon the place. Is the protest of Gov. 
Simcoe intended to apply to Sodiis, exclusively ?" 

LiEOT. Sheaffe. — "By no means ! It is intended to embrace all the Indian lands 
purchased since the peace of 1783." 

Me. WiLLiAjrsoN. — "And what are Gov. Simcoe's intentions, supposing the protest 
is disregartled ?" 

Lieut. Sheaffe. — "I am merely the official bearer of the papers ; but I have a 
further message to dehver from Gov. Simcoe ; which is that he reprobates your con- 
duct exceedingly for endeavoring to obtain flour from Upper Canada ; and that should 
he permit it, it would be acknowledging the right of the United States to these In- 
dian lands." 

* Col. John Butler. 



PHELPS AND GCEIIAm's PUECHASE. 319 

of things, it is hardly to be wondered, that the landing of a small 
body of British troops upon the soil of the Genesee country ; though 
they came but small in numbers, their errand but to bring a threat- 
ening protest, was a circumstance of no trifling magnitude. And the 
reader will not fail to take into the account, how feeble in numbers, 
how exposed, and how weak in all things necessary to a successful 
defence, was the then new settlements of the Genesee country. In 
all this he will be aided by a brief retrospect of the commencement 
and progress of settlement ; and added to what this will show, 
should be the consideration, that the settlers came into the wilder- 
ness unprepared for war. They came, relying upon a treaty of 
peace. Wearied with war and all its harrassing efiects, they had 
more than figuratively beat their swords into ploughshares, and 
their spears into pruning hooks. They had come to subdue the wil- 
derness, and not to subdue their fellow men. The rumors of war 
came to the sparse settlements, and the solitary log-cabins dotted 
down in the wilderness, like the decrees of fate, to be added to all 
the sufferings and endurances of pioneer life. But a few weeks 
previous to all this, there had been, as if by concert, a far more than 
usual emigration of New York Indians to Canada. They went from 
most of the Six Nations, in detatched parties, and a very large pro- 
portion of the Onondagas had emigrated in a body. The demeanor 
of the Senecas had undergone a marked change. By some unseen 
but suspected influence, they had become morose and quarrelsome. 
A far more than usual number of outrages were committed upon 
the new settlers ; in fact, the principal ones that are now remem- 
bered, happened about this period. These facts were not without 
their influence in converting the circumstances of the landing of an 
armed force at Sodus Bay, into a preliminary measure, the sequel 
of which might prove the breaking out of a general war, having 
for its object the recovery of the soil of the Genesee country by 
the Indians, and the bringing of it again under British dominion 

It will surprise those who are not familiar with early events in the 
Genesee country, when they are told that as late as 1794 — eight 
years after settlement had been commenced, there was but little of 
intercourse or communication with Albany and New York ; Phila- 
delphia and Baltimore, and especially the latter, had far more inti- 
mate relations with all this region. To the papers of those cities, 
the settlers in those then backwoods looked for news, and in them 



320 PHELPS AND GOKHAMS PUKCHASE. 

events transpiring here were generally recorded. On the first of 
September, the affair at Sodus was announced in the Maryland 
Gazette, in a letter from Philadelphia, accompanied by the intelli- 
gence that an express had arrived at the then seat of government, 
with despatches for the War Office. 

Immediately after the departure of Lieut. Sheaffe, Mr. William- 
son, with the co-operation of other prominent citizens, adopted the 
most energetic measures, as well for the purpose of preparing for 
the contingency, which he had good reasons for supposing would 
occur, after what had transpired at Sodus, as to give assurances of 
safety and protection to the inhabitants. 

He not only despatched an express rider to the seat of govern- 
ment, as indicated by the correspondent of the Maryland Gazette, 
but he also despatched one to Albany. He forwarded by these mes- 
sengers letters to Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, to Gen. 
Knox, Secretary of War, and to Gov. George Clinton. In these 
letters he detailed all that had transpired, suggested some rneasures 
of protection, and gave asurances that the mandate of Gov. Sim- 
coe would be disregarded. In the letter to Gen. Knox, he says : — 
" It is pretty well ascertained that for some time past, quantities of 
military stores and ammunition have been forwarded to Oswego. 
This makes me think it not improbable that Lieut. Sheaffe will take 
a forcible possession of Sodus on his return. I shall, however, with- 
out relaxing, go on with my business there, until drove off by a 
superior force. It is heedless for me to trouble you with any com- 
ments on this unparalleled piece of insolence, and gross insult to 
the government of the United States." 

Mr. Williamson wrote a letter to Sir William Pulteney, in which 
he says : — 

" I shall make no further comment on tliis business, than to observe, that 
any thing short of actual hostilities, it completes tlie unequalled insolent con- 
duct of Mr. Simcoe toward this government. Mr. Simcoe's personal of my- 
self and you, I treat with the scorn it deserves, but I beg leave to give you a 
sketch of his political conduct. On his first arrival in this country, by deep 
laid schemes he has prevented every ])ossibility of an accomodation between 
this country and tlie hostile Indians, and this summer, by his intrigues, he has 
drawn several tribes of friendly Indians from the territory of the Uniteil States 
to the British side of the lines, and left nothing undone to induce tlie Six 
Nations, our neighbors, to take up the hatchet the moment he gives the word. 
You must be acquainted with his marching a body of armed troops, and 
erecting a Fort at the Rapids of the Miami seventy miles withm the territory 



PHELPS AND GORHAil's PUECnASE. 321 

of the United States, but tliis being an extensive wilderness, seemed of less 
importance. 

" Not content -mth this, he has now interfered with our settlements, in a 
manner so unhke the dignity of a great nation that it must astonish you. If it 
is the intention of the British ministry, b}- low and underhand scheuK-s, to keep 
alive a harrassing war against helpless vromen and childi'en, or by murders on 
this frontier, to add to the list of murders already committed by the influence 
of their servants here, and to treat this government with the most\mwarrantable 
insolence and contempt. I allow that Mr. Simcoe is the most industrious and 
faithful servant the British government ever had. But if it is their intention 
to cultivate a friendly intercourse with this country, it never can take place 
while such is the conduct of their Governor here. For my own part, I think 
it would be doing the government of Great Britain a most essential service, 
should their intentions towards this country be friendly, to show to their min- 
istry the conduct of Gov. Simcoe ; and I write this letter that you may show it 
to Mr. Dundas, or Mr. Pitt, if you think proper. Then- knowledge of me, I 
am convinced, will give it sufficient weight. If these transactions are in con- 
sequence of orders from Great Britain, and their views ai-e hostile, there" is 
nothing further to be said." 

While all this was progressing, in four days after the affair at Sodus 
in fact, before Gov. Simcoe would have had time to execute his 
threats, the great measure of deliverance for the Genesee country 
and the few scattered border settlers of the west, had been con- 
summated. " Mad Anthony, " — [and there had been " method in 
his madness, "] — had met the confederated bands of the hostile 
Indians of the west, and almost under the walls of a fortress of their 
British allies, achieved a signal victory! Those upon whom Gov. 
SimcoQ was relying for aid, (for it is evident that he looked to a 
descent of the western Indians upon the Genesee country in case 
the war was renewed,) — were humbled and suing for peace. 
This alone would have averted his worst intentions, and added to 
this, was the consideration that Mr. Jay had sailed for Loudon on 
the 12th of May, clothed with ample powers from our government 
to arrange all matters of dispute. 

Those familiar with the history of our whole country in the 
earliest years of its separation from England, are aware how im- 
portant was the well planned and successful expedition of General 
Wayne. Important in its immediate consequences — the putting 
an end to protracted, harrassing Indian treaties, and the founding of 
that great empire of wealth, prosperity, and unparralleled progress, 
our western states. But few can now realize its local consequence, 
in the Genesee country. It gave security where there was little of 
it before, inspired hope and confidence with those who were half 



322 PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE. 

determined to retrace the weary steps that had brought them into 
the wilderness, for they felt that if war was to be added to all the 
sufferings and privations they were encountering, it were better to 
abandon the field, if not forever, to a period more propitious. The 
news of Wayne's victory was communicated by Brant to Gen. 
Chapin, and it circulated briskly among the backwoods settlements. 
Here and there was seen small gatherings of Pioneer settlers, con- 
gratulating each other upon the event, and taking fresh courage to 
grapple with the hardships of Pioneer life. All was confirmed, when 
in a few days, the Senecas were seen coming back upon their war 
path, humbled, quaking with fear at the mere recollection of the terri- 
ble onslaught that Mad Anthony had made upon the dusky legions 
that had gathered to oppose him, and uttering imprecations against 
those who had lured them from home to take part in the contest 
and then remained far away from danger, or shut themselves up in 
a strong fortress, but spectators in a conflict in which they and 
their confederates were falling like autumn leaves in a shower of 
hail. 

The haughty spirit of the descendants of the warlike Iroquois, 
was humbled within them, and chagrined by the terrible discomfit- 
ure they had witnessed, and been partakers of, as well as by the 
bad faith of their advisers and abettors at Niagara, they resolved to 
settle down quietly in their villages, and renew their peaceful and 
amicable relations with their white neighbors. 

As early as the 3d of July, preceding the visit of Lieut. SheafFe, 
to Sodus, a representation had been made to the War Department, 
of the exposed condition of the new settlers in the Genesee coun- 
try, the danger of Indian disturbances promoted by British agents 
at Niagara, and the necessity of some means of defence. To which, 
Gen. Knox, the Secretary of War, had replied in substance, that 
some ofllcial use had been made of the communication, by the Sec- 

IfoTE. — Tliore ai'C some amusing ;iiiccdotes of the relations that tlie returninnf Indi- 
dians gave of the battk\ In its conduct, Wayne had made himself in their imagiaa- 
ations, more than human. His was a warfare they had been unused to : — impetuous, 
crusliiug ; inspiring a tenor that (H)nquered as effectually as his arms. A Seneca, who 
came away in an early stage of the battle, having seen quite enough to gratify his curi- 
osity and love of ads-enture, gave to an informant of the author, the reason for his 
precipitate retreat. He said iu his graphic description of the opening of tlie fight : 
— "Fop, pop, pop, — boo, woo, woo-o-oo, — wish, wish, wish-e-ee, — boo, woo! — 
kill twenty Inguus one time; uo good, by d — n!" This the reader will at ouco 
perceive, was an attempt to imitate the tiring of small arms and cauuou, and the 
whizzing of the fuse, and the bursting of bombs. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 323 

retary ot War, in his correspondence with the British Minister, 
that a conference was to be held with the Six Nations at Canandai- 
gua,.in September, for the purpose of concihating, and establishing 
finally a peace with them if possible. In reply to an application 
for arms, the Secretary says, that an order had been issued in i'avor 
of the Governor of New York, for one thousand muskets, cartridge 
boxes, and bayonets. 

The following copy of a letter from President Washington to Mr. 
Jay, our then minister in London, possesses much of a general 
historical interest, and will aid the reader in a full understanding of 
the questions then at issue, so far as this local region wasc oncerned : 

"August, 30, ]794. 

" As you will receive letters from tlie Secretary of States' oiiice, giving an 
official account of tlie public occurrences as tiiey have arisen and advanced, 
it is unnecessary for rae to retouch any of them ; and yet I cannot restrain my- 
self from making some observations on the most recent of them, the commu- 
nication of which was received this morning only. I mean the protest of the 
Governor of Upper Canada, deli\'ered by Lieutenant Sheaife, against our oc- 
cupying lands far from any of the posts, which, long ago, they ought to liave 
suri-(3ndered, and far within the known, and until now, the acknowledged 
limits of the United States. 

" On this ii'rogular and high handed proceeding of Mr. Simcoe, which is 
no longer masked, I would rather hear what the ministry of Great Britain will 
say, than pronounce my own sentiments thereon. But can that government, 
or will it attem])t, after tliis official act of one of tlieir govei'nors, to hold out 
i<leas of friendly intentions towai'ds the United States, and sutler such con- 
duct to pass with impunity ? 

" This may be considered as the most open and daring act of the British 
agents in Amei'ica, though it is not the most hostile and cruel : f<jr tliere 
does not remain a doubt in the mind of any well infoimed person in this 
countr}-, not shut against conviction, that all the difficulties we encounter with 
the Indians, their hostilities, the murders of hcljjless women and children, 
along our frontiers, residt from the conduct of agents of Great Britain in 
this country. In vain is it then for its administration in Britain, to disavow 
having given orders which will warrant such conduct, whilst their agents go 
unpunished ; while we have a thousand corroborating circumstances, and 
indeed as many evidences, some Qf which cannot be brought forward, to prove 
that they are seducing from our alliances, and endeavoring to remove over the 
Ime, tribes that have hitherto been kept in peace and friendship with us at a 
heavy expense, and who liave no causes of complaint, except i)retended ones 
of their creating ; whilst they keep in a state of irritation the tribes that ai-e 
hostile to us, and are instigating those who know little of us, or we of them, 
to unite in the war against us ; and whilst it is an undeniahle fact, that they 
are furnishing the whole with arms, ammunition, clothing, and even 2>'ro- 
visions to carry on the war. I might go farther, and if thev are not much 
belied, add, men also in disguise. 



324 PHELPS AND GORIIAM'S PURCHASE. 

" Can it be expected, I ask, so long as these things are known in the United 
States, or at least firmly believed, and suffered with impunity by Great Britain, 
that there ever will or ctm be any cordiality between the two countries? I 
answer — No. And I wilf undertake, Avithout the gift of prophecy to predict, 
that it will be impossible to keep tliis country in a s^tate of amity with Great 
Britain long, if these posts are not surrendered. A knowledge of these beuig 
my sentiinents, would have but little weight, I am ])ersuaded, with the Ih-itish 
administration, or perhaps with the nation, in effecting the measures, but boih 
may rest satistieJ, that if they Maut to be at peace "with this country, and to 
enjoy the benefits of its trade, to giAO up the posts is the only road to it. 
Withholding them, and the consequences we feel at present continuing, whr 
■will be inevitable." 



CHAPTER V. 



JAME-3 AND WILLIAM WADSWORTH PIONEER EVENTS IN WHAT 13 

NOW LIVINGSTON. 



The advent of these two brothers to the Genesee country, marks 
an era in our early local history. They were from tlie first, 
large landholders and patroons of new settlements, and for many 
years intimately and conspicuously blended with the progress of 
improvement. The connection of their family with Col. Jeremiah 
Wadsworth, of Hartford, Conn., was the primary cause of their 
early enterprise ; of whom, as he was an early and large proprietor 
of land, by purchase from Phelps and Gorham, it will not be out of 
place to speak, incidentally. He was the son of the Rev. Daniel 
Wadsworth, of Hartford. Entering upon a sea-faring life in early ' 
years, for the benefit of his health, first as a sailor before the mast, :l 
and afterwards as mate and captain, he finally settled down in 
Hartford, where he resided upon the breaking out of the Revolution- 
ary war. He received the appointment of commissary of the Con-, 
necticut line, and following that appointment, he had important trusts 
committed to his charge, not only by Connecticut, but by the Con- 
gress at Philadelphia, having reference generally to tlie pay, clothing 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 325 

and subsistence of the Continental troops. Soon after tlie arrival 
of Rochambeau, with the French army, their subsistence was en- 
trusted to his charge, jointly with John B. Church. He was one 
of those with whom Gen. Washington made an early acquaintance 
when the great crisis arrived, and in whose hospitable mansion, at 
Hartford, he was wont to meet, and have social intercourse and 
consultation with its owner, and other prominent men of the Revo- 
lution. It was the taking down and removal of this old mansion, 
that suggested the following beautiful lines of Mrs. Sigourney : — 

" Fallen dome, beloved so well, 
Thou could 'st many a legend tell 
Of the chiefs of ancient fame, 
"Who, to share tliy shelter came : — 
Rochambeau and La Fayette, 
Round thy plenteous board have met, 
With Columbia's mij;^hticr son, 
Great and glorious Wasiiingtox. 
Here with kindred niiiids tliey plann'd 
Rescue for an infant land ; 
While the British Lion's roar 
Echo'd round the leagur'd shore." 

Annals cf Conn., by R R Ilinman. 

" The services of Col. Wadsvvorth, during some periods of the 
war," says a biographer, " were incalculable." He was a member 
of the 1st, 2d, and 3d Congress. He died in 1804, aged 61 years. 

Mr. Phelps having been in the commissary department during the 
Revolution, he had made the acquaintance of Col. Wadsworth, and 
soon after he obtained title, induced him to make investments in the 
Genesee country.* He purchased T. 0, R. 9, a part of T. 11, R. 
7, and one 12th of " Big Tree."t Being a man of wealth, and con- 
siderably advanced in years, their purchases were for investment 
and and re-sale, rather than with any intention to emigrate. 

William and James Wadsworth were natives of Durham, Conn., 
the sons of John N. Wadsworth. James Wadsworth graduated at 
Yale College, in 1787, and spent the winter of '87 and '88, in Mon- 
treal, employed in school teaching. The father had died before 
James graduated at College, and left the homestead in Durham, 
which would have been called a " fair estate" in New England, to 
his three children, the care of which had devolved upon the elder 
brother, William. In the Spring of 1790, at a period when James, 
then 22 years of age, was undeterminecr as to the pursuits of life -r- 



326 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

hesitating between the alternatives of seeking his fortune in the south- 
ern states, and acquiring the profession of law, and settling down in 
New England, his kinsman, Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth, proposed to 
him emigration to the Genesee country, the sale to him of a part 
of his tract at " Big Tree," upon advantageous terms, and an 
agency that would embrace the care and sale of his remaining lands. 
After consulting with his brother William, making it a condition of 
the proposed emigration that he should accompany him, the two 
brothers agreed jointly to accept the proposition. 

In June, after a work of preparation which was of no little mag- 
nitude in New England, preliminary to an advent to this then far 
off and secluded wilderness ; amid the farewells of kindred and 
friends, in which were mingled sad forebodings of the dangers and 
vicissitudes the bold adventurers were about to encounter, they com- 
menced their journey. William, the practical working man of the 
two, so far as manual labor was concerned, started with an ox team 
and cart, two or three hired men and a colored woman, a favorite 
slave belonging to the family. J James came via the Sound, and the 
Hudson, and the water route from Schenectady to the head of navi- 
gation on Canandaigua outlet, in charge of provisions and a small 
amount of household furniture. William, with his oxen and cart, 
made slow progress. The winter sleigh road west of Whitesboro, 
had to be adapted to wheels as they progressed ; logs had to be cut 
and moved out of the track, and small streams and sloughs had to 
be cause-wayed. Arriving at Cayuga Lake, there was no ferry 
scow, and the party chartered two Indian canoes, which they lashed 
together, and making a deck of poles, succeeded in crossing. Be- 
tween Whitesboro and Canandaigua their average progress was 
but twelve miles per day. The parties reunited at Canandaigua, 
James having arrived three days in advance. 

After making some necessary preparations, the whole party start- 

* Or, as is qnite probable, Col. Wads-wortb may have had an interest, originally, 
■with Messrs. Phelps and Gorham. 

t To which, James and "William afterwards added a tenth, making the original 
Wadsworth tract at Geneseo, about 5,000 acres. 

t The identical " Jenny." She was for a long time almost the only one of her race, 
in that region ; and an object of curiosity with the younger portion of the back- 
woodsmen. Turning to the travels of Liancourt, we find that on the morning he left J 
"Big Tree," she was mieuingand powdering "Capt. Wadsworth's" hair, preparatoiy I 
to his departure for Caradaig'ia to "review a party of '"Idier.'i. ovrr wlioin lie is ' 
ca;jt;;ln." 



I 



PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE. 327 

ed from Canandaigua, with all the effects with which they had left 
Durham, to which had been added a small stock of cattle, purchased 
upon the Mohawk. They took the Indian trail and Sullivan's 
route, clearing their road for the passage of their cart, as they went 
along, camping the first night at " Pitt's Flats," and the next, at the 
foot of Conesus Lake. Breaking up their encampment in the 
morning, James, on horseback, with one companion, preceded the 
rest of the party, and pursued the Big Tree trail ; William, with 
the oxen, cart, and other effects, following after, took the Branch 
trail that led to a large Indian village of the Oneidas, which was 
two miles below Big Tree, on the river. Wandering:; from the 
obscure trail, the party got lost, and brought up at night in a swamp 
about two miles north-east from Big Tree, tied their cattle to trees, 
and encamped. James, having spent the night at Big Tree, with 
his companion, in the woods, with no means of making an en- 
campment, took his back track in the morning ; arrived at the point 
where the Oneida trail branched off, followed the track of the cart 
wheels, and found the lost party, groping in the wilderness, un- 
determined as to the course they should pursue. He conducted the 
whole party to Big Tree, (Geneseo, the reader will bear in mind,) 
where they slept in the cart and upon the ground, for two or three 
nights, until they erected a rude cabin on the table land, a little be- 
low the present village, on the old River trail. On their arrival, 
they found, of their race, but one man, Lemuel Jennings, who had 
a cabin, and was herding some cattle on the flats for Oliver Phelps. 
James, returning to Canandaigua on the day he had located the 
party, on his v/ay back, got benighted, but was attracted by a light, 
and pursuing the direction from which it proceeded, found the negro 
woman, Jenny, holding a light for his brother William, who was 
hewing some plank for their cabin floor. 

The arrival was upon the 10th of June. In August of the same 
year, 1790, when Gen. Amos Hall took the census, the family of 
William Wadsworth consisted of nine persons. Beside him, there 
had then settled in the townships, others who were regarded as 
heads of families : — Phineas Bates, Daniel Ross, Henry Brown, 
Enoch Noble, Nicholas Rosecrant.z, David Robb, Nahum Fair- 
banks. Horatio and John H. Jones had preceded the Wadaworths 
a few weeks, and were over the river, occupying an Indian cabin, 
and the shantee they had built the year before. They had come in 



328 PHELPS AND, GORHAm'3 PURCHASE. 

from Geneva, via Canandaigua and Avon, with a cart, Horatio's 
wife and three children, household furniture, and some hired men. 
Their cart was the first wheel vehicle that passed over that route. 
From Avon, they had no track, but picked their way along the 
ridges and open grounds. Horatio Jones built a comfortable block 
house the same year. Besides Horace Jones' family, there was in 
August, west of the river, on what was then called " Indian lands," 
the families of William Ewing, * Nathan Fowler, and Jeremiah 
Gregory, f 

The Indians residing upon the Genesee river in 1790, were loca- 
ted in villages, as follows : — At Squaky Hill, near Mount JMorris, 
there were a small cluster of cabins, and a few families. The men 
had been southern captives, who had intermarried, and merged 
themselves with the Senecas. The principal chief, was " Black 
Chief" At " Allan's Hill," now Mount Morris, there were a few 
families ; their principal chief, " Tall Chief" He was a fine speci- 
men of his race, physically and otherwise. At Philadelphia, on a 
visit to Congre-^s, with Horatio Jones, he commanded much atten- 
tion and respect. 

Little Beard's Town, a large village, w-as upon the present site 
of Cuylerville. The chief, Little Beard, was one of the worst 
specimens of his race. He was chiefly instrumental in the horrid 
massacre of Lieut. Boyd, and all the early Pioneers give him a bad 
character. The manner of his death in 1806, was but a just retri- 
bution for his many acts of cruelty in the Border wars: — In a 
drunken row, in wi\ich both Indians and whites were engaged, at 
the old Stimson tavern, in Leicester, he was pushed out of door, 
and falling from the steps, received an injury that caused his 
death. 

Big Tree, a considerable village, was upon the bluff, opposite 
■ 1 

* Earing was a surveyor in the employ of ilr. Phelps. His fatlier, Alexander 
Ewiiiij, became a resident there in an earlv day, upon wliat is now the Perkins I'arni, 
near Fall Brook. He was the father-in-law of John H. Jones. His son, William, 
went from there to Buffalo, and from thence to Sandusky. Another son, Alexander, 
was a Pioneer at Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he carried on an Indian trade. His son 
Charles, was the U.S. District Jiidsje Ewinsj; another son, George W., was State 
Senator of Indiana ; William G. Ewing, of Indiana, wjis another son. The father was an 
emigrant from Ireland, and was settlecl in -Northumberland, Pa., when settlement of 
the Genesee country commenced. 

t He was the father of " Mille Gregory," who was one of the white wives of Ebene- 
zer AUan. He lived on the Cauascraga, near ' Sou-yea," (the open spot where the 
8un shines in,) the present site of the Shaker Society. 



PHELPS AND GORHAM^S PURCHASE. 329 

Geneseo, upon the river, now embraced in the farm of Eason Slo- 
cum ; Ken-de-wa, (Big Tree) was its principal chief. 

There was a small village of Tucaroras on the river, a little 
above the Geneseo bridge, which was called Tuscarora ; and two 
miles down the river from Geneseo, near the large Maple Grove of 
the ]Messrs. Wadsworths, was " Oneida Town," a large village of 
Oneidas. * 

The other, and a principal village, was on the west bank of the 
river, opposite Avon, near where the main road crosses the river. 
The chief was Ga-kwa-dia, (Hot Bread,) in high repute among his 
people, and much respected by the Pioneer settlers, f 

Gardeau, was the residence of the White Woman, and the several 
branches of her family went principally to make up the small 
village. Her husband was principal chief At Nunda, there 
was a small village ; " Elk Hunter " and " Green Coat," were 
principal chiefs. 

At Caneadea there was a considerable village ; the head chief, 
John Hudson. He was an old man, and had been a leading 
" brave " in the southern Indian wars, waged by the Senecas, 
and afterwards, in the English and French wars. Hon. George 
Woods, a prominent citizen of Bedford, Pennsylvania, became a 
prisoner with the Indians, on the Ohio or the Allegany. Hudson 
porcured his release, after he had been condemned and tied to a 
stake. In after years, they met, and the Judge treated him with 
much kindness, making him a present of a fine house and lot at 



* The Oneidas and Tuscaroras -were divided on the breaking out of the Revolution. 
Those that adhered to the colonies, and the neutrals, remaining in their eastern vil- 
lages ; and those that followed Bntler and Brant, coming upon the Genesee River. A 
partial re-uuiou of the Tuscaroras took place at their village near Lewiston, in after 
years. 

t This was the birth place of Complanter. In hLs letter to the Governor of Penn- 
sylvania, in 1822, he says : — "I feel it my duty to send a speech to the Governor of 
Pennsylvania at this time, and inform him the place where I was from — which was 
Connewaugus, on the Genesee river." He then goes on to relate to the Governor, that 
on growing up, the Indian boys in the neighborhood took notice of his skin being of 
a different color from theirs, and on naming it to his mother, she told him who his 
white father was, and that he lived at Albany. He, after becoming a man, souglit hirn 
out, and made himself known to him. He complains that he gave him victuals to eat 
at his house, but " no provisions to eat on the way home." " He gave me neither 
kettle nor gun, nor did he tell me that the United States were about to rebel against 
Great Britain." This is authentic, and does away with the less truthful, but more 
romantic version of the first intemew between Complanter and liis white father, 
O'Bail or"Abeel." 

21 



330 PIIELP3 AND GOEHAil's PURCHASE. 

Bedford, which he never occupied, but he used to often pride him- 
self upon its possession, and the manner in which he came by it. 

In a ramble, to give the reader some account of their neighbors, 
the adventurers who were more immediately under consideration, 
have almost been lost sight of. We left William Wadsworth hewing 
plank for their shantee, by candle light, and James emerging from 
the forest, where he had been lost on his return from Canandaigua. 
The shantee went up, and the work of clearing a small spot of up- 
land and preparing a few acres of flats for summer crops, was im- 
mediately commenced. There was from the first, a division of 
labor between the two brothers : — William had been bred a 
farmer, and from habit and physical constitution, was well adapted 
to take the laboring oar in that department. Few men were better 
fitted for a Pioneer in the backwoods — to wrestle with the harsh- 
est features of Pioneer life — or for being merged in habits, social 
intercourse and inclinations, with the hardy adventurers who were 
his early cotemporaries. The backwoodsmen called him '"Old 
Bill," and yet he had not reached his 30th year ; — not from any dis- 
respect, but as a kind of backwoods conventional nomenclature. At 
a log house raising, " a bee," or a rude frolic, " he was one of them ;" 
and when there were any "doings" at "Old Leicester," "Pitt's 
Flats," or Williamsburg, he was pretty sure to be there. He took 
an early interest in the organization of the militia, and mingled 
with the recollections of the author's boyhood, is " General Bill," 
at the fall musters, with his harsh, strong features, and bronzed 
complexion, mounted upon his magnificent black charger ; the 
"observed of all observers," the not inapt personification of the 
dark and frowning god of war ; and to youthful backwoods eyes, 
he looked nothing less. 

James, was by nature, of a different cast, and to natural incli- 
nations had been added the polish and the discipline of mind 
acquired in college halls, and a mingling in the most cultivated of 
New England society. The transition, the change of a New Eng- 
land home, for that of a cabin in the wilderness, and the associa- 
tions of the backwoods, was far less easy and natural ; though by 
alternating between the settlement at " Big Tree, " and Canandai- 



NoTE. — James Hudson, tlie son and successor of Jolan, was one of the finest speci- 
men of his race that was found liere, in the early days of settlement. Staid and digni- 
tied in liis deportuient, he was tndy one of "nature's nohlcmen." 



PHELPS AISTD GOEHAJl's PUPvCHASE. 331 

gua, Albany and Connecticut, he managed to accommodate himself 
very well to circumstances. Upon him devolved the land agen- 
cy, and soon extending its sphere, and pijrchasing largely on the 
joint account of himself and brother, even in early years, he be- 
came engrossed in a business of great magnitude. 

They had left behind them a large circle of family connexions 
and friends in "old Durham, " and great was their concern for the 
rash adventurers who had pushed away on beyond the verge of 
civilization, and set down in the midst of wild beasts, and then but 
recently hostile Indian tribes. How different is now the spirit and 
feeling of the age ? Then, there had been brooding over New Eng- 
land the incubus of foreign dominion, binding, fettering enterprise, 
and confining it to narrow, sterile and unpropitious bounds ; until 
when the fetters were shaken off, it seemed rashness to venture 
upon the extension of settlement and civilization even to thi^ fair 
region, where all would seem to have been so inviting and promis- 
ing. Now, under the blessings, the stimulus, the i-elease from 
foreign thraldom, of something over half a century, our young men 
maive a hasty preparation, and are off over a wide ocean track, foun- 
dins; villages and cities on the Pacific coast, in the interior, and fol- 
lowing up, up, the dark ravines of the Sierra Nevada, are making 
their camps upon its slope and its summit ; and in fond kindred 
circles at home, there is less concern for them than there was for 
the young adventurers who pushed out from New England to settle 
in the Genesee country. 

An active correspondence commenced between James and his 
New England friends soon after their departure from Durham. 
In a letter to his brother, John N. Wadsworth, dated at Albany, he 
says : — " We have secured a boat and pilot, forage is pretty scarce, 
but our expenses do not exceed our expectations. We have now 
arrived where Genesee is much talked of, and all accounts confirm 
us in our choice. All hands are in good health and fine spirits ; lay 
aside all anxiety for us. We expect many difficulties but are fast 
in the belief that perseverance will surmount them. There has 
arrived this day, two vessels from Rhode Island. One has 28 and 
the other 30 passengers, bound full speed for the Genesee country. 
The migrrations to the westward are almost beyond belief Gin's 
(the colored woman,) courage rather increases, as many of her 
color ni"^ o-oing to the Genesee."* A tender epistle to James, in no 



B32 PHELPS Ajstd goehaim's purchase. 

masculine hand, dated at New Haven, imagines that at some Indian 
war dance, his scalp may be one of the trophies " that will dangle 
from the belt of a Seneca brave. " She adds, that " nothing short 
of making a fortune could induce you to reside amongst an uncivill 
ized people, exposed to the savages of the wilderness. " Samuel 
Street, of Chippewa, C. W., writes a note from Canandaigua, on a 
small strip of paper, asking Mr. Wadsworth to excuse it " as paper 
is very scarce here. " John B. Van Epps writes from Schenectady 
that " Peter and Gerritt Ryckman would not take up the four bar- 
rels of rum to Canandaigua, under 84 per barrel; and to be paid 
likewise for riding the barrels over the carrying place. " 

As earl 3^ as September, 1790, the progress of improvement was 
arrested: — William and all of his hired hands had the fever and 
ague, the wench Jenny being the only well one among them. Dis- 
heartened by disease, the hired men returned to Connecticut, 
where they were soon followed by James, leaving William and 
the negro woman, to winter in the shantee and take care of the 
stock. 

James Wadsworth started from Durham, in April 1791; but was 
delayed in New York by the sprouting of the ague, the seeds of 
which had been sown the fall previous. He arrived however, at 
"Bio: Tree '" in June, and writes back to his uncle James that he 



* But she did not become wholly reconciled. Sometimes on foot, sometimes in the 
ox-cart, cutting out roads and camping out nights, she -would get out of all patience, in- 
sist that the exj^cdition "sva-s a wild and fooUsh one ; and offer her sage advice that it 
■would be best to go back to " Old Durham " and give it up as a bad job. 

Note. — Among the family connexions in Durham, was an uncle, Gen. James 
Wadsworth, who had held the rank of a Major General in the Connecticut line in the 
Revolution, was a member of tlie Continental Congress ; and was one of the promi- 
nent men of New England. It would seem tliat after the death of their father, he had 
been, if not the guardian, the kind mentor snd connscllor of his nej)hews. Eeverence 
for his memory is the natm-al impulse upon tlie perasal of his letters to them after they 
had departed for the Genesee country. His tirst letter dated in May, 1790, was a long 
one, replete with advice and adnmnition, deeply imbued with religious sentiment, and 
instructions as to the duties and pursuits of Jife. In the next, dated in July, he givea 
the ne])hews all the cun-ent news of the day, as if they were beyond the reach of news- 
papers or mails, (as they really were,) and closes with admonitions :— •" I must remind 
you of the importance of orderly and regular conduct in a new settlement ; of a proper 
obsen-ation of the Sabbath; of justice in your deaUngs, especially with the Indians; 
and of inviolably supporting your credit; cultivate friendsliip with your neighboring 
Indians. Wliatever husbandry you undertake, doit thoroughly." Then again in an- 
other letter, he strikes off upon foreign news: — " The commotions in France, are the 
topics among our politicians and clergy. Cutting oft heads, hanging and assassination, 
are nuich the order of the day there. It will be a very hard case if they are not very 
properly ajiplied in some instances. Report says, the King's head is cut off; La Fay- 
ette has gone over to the Austrians. I hope the six nations will obsei-ve a strict neu- 
trality, on which your safety depends." 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PUECHASE. 833 

found '•' brother Bill well ; and by persevering industry he has much 
improved the place, and given our settlement a very different and 
highly pleasing aspect. We have an excellent enclosed pasture 
within eight rods of our house, and please ourselves with the pros- 
pect of soon enjoying most of the conveniences of settlements of 
several years standing. We have the prospect throughout the 
country of a most extraordinary crop of wheat ; ours far exceeds 
our expectations, and corn promises 60 or 70 bushels to the acre. 
Our flats bespeak a great quantity of hay,(wild grass.) Respecting 
the Indians, we are so far from dreading the Six Nations (our neigh- 
bors) that we consider them no inconsiderable security. Thev 
have given us the most satisfactory proof of their friendship. We 
shall not be troubled by the southern Indians. I am happy to say 
that on second view of the Genesee country, I am confirmed in my 
favorable opinion of it. We have received a great increase of in- 
habitants the winter past. Four barns were raised last week in 
Canandaigua, within a half mile distance. Ontario, from a dreary 
wilderness begins to put on the appearance of a populated country. " 
In a letter to his uncle James, dated in August, same year, he 
says : — " The Indians have returned from the treaty(Pickering's at 
Newtown,) highly pleased. The inhabitants now do not even think 
of danger from the Six Nations ; although fears are entertained 
that the southern Indians will attack the Six Nations. " 

In 1791, Oliver Phelps, First Judge of Ontario county admits 
James Wadsworth to practice as attorney and counsellor " to enable 
persons to sue out writs and bring actions, which at the present, 
for want of attornies, it is impossible to do. " 

The Messrs. Wadsworths' from year to year, extended their far- 
ming operations, bringing the broad sweep of flats that they pos- 
sessed, under cultivation, and stocking it with cattle. There being 
no access to markets for wheat, they raised but little, but were early 
large producers of corn. Their cattle went to the Philadelphia 
and Baltimore markets principally ; some were sold to new settlers, 
and some driven to Fort Niagara and Canada. Independent of 
their cultivated fields, the uplands and flats in summer, and the 
rushes that grew in abundance upon the flats, in winter, enabled 
them to increase their cattle to any desired extent. The present 
town of Rush, upon its flats had extensive meadows of rushes, upon 
which their cattle were herded for several of the earlv winters. 



334 PHELPS Al^D GOEHAM S PURCHASE. 

They at one period had an extensive dairy. The cultivation of 
hemp engaged their attention in an early day, and along in 1800, 
and a few succeeding years, they were large cultivators of it, with 
others upon the river. They manufactured much of it into ropes, 
for which they found a market in Albany and New York. In com- 
mon with others in their neighborhood, they commenced the culti- 
vation of tobacco ; but that business fell pretty much into the hands 
of a company, who came on from Long Meadow, in Connecticut, 
rented flats of them, and cultivated for a few years largely. They 
cured it and put it u\ for market after the Virginia fashion. The 
breeding of mules fo. the Baltimore market, was a considerable 
business with them in early years. In later years they turned their 
attention to sheep, and prosecuted wool growing to an extent that 
has never been exceeded in the United States. In some observa- 
tions of Professor Renwick, they are ranked with Gen. Wade Hamp- 
ton, of S. Carolina, in reference to the magnitude of their opera- 
tions, at the " head of agricultural pursuits in the United States." 

While the immediate care of all this chiefly devolved upon Wil- 
ham Wadsworth, James participated in it by a general supervis- 
ion, the purchase and sale of stock in distant markets, the procuring 
of improved breeds of cattle and sheep, and a scientific investiga- 
tion of all matters of practical improvement in agriculture. 

From their first coming into the country, they were constantly 
extending their farming operations, and adding to their possessions. 
In early years they w'ere materially aided in all this, by the use of 
the capital of their friends in New England ; especially that of 
their relative, Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth ; but their extensive and 
judiciously conducted farming, soon began to yield them large 
profits, which added to the commissions that James realized upon 
various land agencies, in the aggregate, of vast magnitude, and of 
profits of purchase and sale of wild lands upon his own account 
enabled them to add farm tofai'm, and tract to tract, until they were 
ranked among the largest land holders in the United States ; and 
in reference to present and prospective value of their possessions, 
probably the largest. Certainly no others owned and managed so 
many cultivated acres. 



Note. —Major Spencer, the early merchant, manufaehired the leaf into plugs, and 
for sev«al years sujiplied most of the small dealer? "west of Seneca Lake. 



PHELPS AND GOPJIAil's PUECHASE. 835 

In Februaiy, 1796, James Wads worth sailed for Europe. He 
went upon his own account, upon that of joint partners with him in 
land operations, and other large land holders in the United States. 
And here it is not out of place to remark, that land speculations had 
become rife very soon after the close of the Revolution. Large 
quantities of wild lands were thrown into market by the different 
States, pre-emption rights were obtained. Indian cessions followed, 
and very soon most of the available capital and credit of the whole 
country was used in the purchase of lands. They rose rapidly in 
value, fortunes were made, but as we have seen in later years, a 
crash followed, ruin and bankruptcy overtook, a large and prominent 
class of the operators. No matter how low they had purchased 
their lands ; if they were in debt for them, sale, settlement and nii- 
provement, would fall behind the pay days of purchase money, and 
wide tracts of uncultivated wilderness was a poor resource for taking 
care of protested bills, and threatened foreclosures. Speculators had 
over bought, even with the quantity of wild lands then marketable, 
and when other wide regions in the north-west territory were thrown 
into market, and brought into competition, embarrassments were en- 
hanced. In '95, '6, this untoward state of things had arrived at its 
culminating point ; an exigency existed which created the alterna- 
tives of ruin to nearly all who had ventured in large land specula- 
tions, and the enlisting of capital in Europe. 

In such a crisis, a distinct realization of which, can only be had 
by a general review of the history of that period, Mr. Wadsworth 
was selected as an agent to go to Europe, and make sales of lands to 
foreign capitalists. It was ce-rtainly no small compliment to the bus- 
siness reputation and character of one who had gone out in his youth 
and acquired his I'ecommendations in the back woods, to be thus 
singled out from among the most prominent men in the United 
States, whose interest, with his own, he was to promote. His visit 
to Europe, was at the suggestion, and attended by the co-operation, 
of Robert Morris, Thomas Morris, Governeur Morris, Aaron Burr, 
Charles Williamson, De Witt Clinton, Robert Troup, Oliver Phelps, 
Nicholson and Greenleaf, Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth, of Hartford, 
and other prominent men of New England and Pennsylvania. His 
mission was undertaken under adverse circumstances : • — What was 
understood in Europe to have been the highly successful ventures of 
the London associates, and the Holland Company of Amsterdam, in 



836 PHELPS AND GOEHAMS PURCHASE. 

lands in this region, had had the effect to stimulate others, and at 
first, to create a strong disposition for American land investments. 
Land agents had flocked to Europe, and it is not at all strange that 
impositions had been practiced, and that many had been, (to use a 
modern term,) victimized. The reader need only be told, that a 
system of operations had been carried on, not unlike the mapping 
and platting upon paper, which prevailed in 1836, '7. Mr. Wads- 
worth i-eached Europe at a period of reaction, and yet, with the 
testimonials he carried with him, added to the confidence he inspired 
by his dignity of deportment and manifest integrity of purpose, by 
a slow process, his mission was mainly successful. He visited, and 
resided temporaily in London, Paris and Amsterdam. His letters of 
introduction, coming from high sources in this country, gave liim ac- 
cess to the society of prominent financial men of that period, and inci- 
dentally to that of some eminent statesmen and scholars. Favored at 
once by the countenance and friendship of Sir Wm. Pulteney and 
Mr. Coiquhoun, and in Amsterdam, with that of the members of the 
Holland Company, among whom was one eminent statesman, and 
several who occupied a high position as bankers, the young back- 
woodsman, from then young America, was enabled to place him- 
self upon a favorable footing, not only with reference to the imme- 
diate objects of his mission, but with reference to those advantages 
acquired by foreign travel and residence. He remained abroad until 
the last of November, 1798. In all this time, he effected a large 
amount of sales, and to this mission is to be attributed many of the 
foreign proprietoi'ships in this region, as well as in other portions of 
the United States. Some brief extracts from his correspondence 
while abroad, possess not only local, but general historical inter- 
est, and are contained in a note attached. While in London 
Mr. Wadsworth obtained a commission agency from Sir William 
Pulteney, for the sale of lands upon the Mill Tract west of 
Genesee River, embracing what is now Ogden, Parma, Riga. Chili, 
and a part of Greece and Wheatland, from William Six, of Am- 
sterdam, for the sale of the township), now Henrietta, and from 
others, the agency for the sale of other tracts. And added to all 
this, was the agency for the sale of lands in the Genesee country 
belonging to Jeremiah Wadsworth and other New England land- 
holders. The duties thus assumed, together with the general man- 
agement of what then constituted the Wadsworth estate, of farms 



PHELPS AXD GOEHAMS PURCHASE. 337 

and wild lands, threw upon his hands an amount of business seldom 
devolving upon one individual, and requiring all his time and ener- 
gies. He must be regarded as the patroon of new settlements in 
his own neighborhood, in a large portion of the present county of 
Monroe, and in several other localities. His European agencies 
w^ere upon terms that gave him an interest in the sale and settlement 
of wild lands, in some instances more than equal to that of the pro- 
prietors, and he was indefatigable in promoting sales. The fine re- 
gions coming under his supervision, unbroken by sales or settlement, 
principally west of the Genesee river: were put in market, and 
going to New England, he prosecuted upon a large scale, a system 
that Mr. Phelps had began, of exchanging wild lands for farms, 
when the occupants would become residents. He thus secured a 
good class of new settlers, and no where in the whole history of new 
settlements in this country, have they been more prosperous, abating 
such drawbacks as were beyond his control, than those were of 
which he may be regarded the founder. And while he was thus 
the instrument, eventually, to promote the prosperity of others, he 
was laying the foundation, or accumulating, the large estate which 
his family now possess. The profits of his agencies were large 
ones, and were invested in wild lands and farms. These being 
g nerally retained and well managed, the rise in value chiefly helped 



Note. — From London, Jane, '96. J. W. wi-ites to .Charles Wilkes,* that he was 
upon the point of effecting large sales of land, "but all had been frustrated bv oppo- 
sition in the H. of Rep. to Jay's treaty." "The fear of sequestration and confiscation 
has destroyed all confidence with capitalists in England. Besides they fear the effect 
of French influence in the United States." " Mr. Young, a large East India cap- 
italist, to -whom 1 -was going to sell 30,000 acres of land at half a guinea per acre, 
backs out inconsequence of news from America." J. "W. to Thomas Morris. May, 
'90, says : — " I am prevented from making sales by the proceedings of H. of Repre- 
sentatives." J. "W. to Charles Wilkes, June, '96 : — - " Things are looking better ; news 
has been received that Congress have passed the necessary laws to carry the treaty into 
effect ; confidence in Ameiican investments are reviving/' J. W. to Benj. West, (the 
eel'brated painter.) — "Be kind enough to use your influence in quieting alarm and 
gctthig up confidence in London. I have no doubt that the United States will be as 
hapi^y, and theu- government as permanent, as is ailowaV)le to men, and human insti- 
tutions in the world." A correspondence between Mr. Wadsworth and Aaron Biut 
was kept up during the absence of the former ; tlie letters of Mr. Burr, would some- 
limes be upon matters of business, sometimes upon politics, which subject would sud- 
Jenly be arrested by his favorite theme, gossip upon courtship and marriage. Some 
portions of his letters are obscured by the use of his ciphers. A. B. to J. W., Nov. 
1796 : — "I refer you to the gazettes for the name of the electors, and the particulars 
vet known respecting the election ; 4 I think will be 15 ; 1, has, I think no chance ; 
12 and 4 will run generally togetlier, hnt the latter will not succeed by reason of 
Bome disaffection in 14; — 16, lO, had been at home, 13 would have been the man as 

* An eminent early merchant of New York ; a namesake and family connexion of 
Charles Wilkes, of Loudon. 



338 PHELPS AXD goeham's puechase. 

to make the lagest estate, perhaps, that has ever been accumulated 
m the United States, by the same process. 

But let no one, while viewing the broad domains of which he 
died possessed, suppose that they came to him in the absence of in- 
dustry, economy, good management, or of long years of severe 
trial and embarrassments. Dependent, chiefly, in his early enter- 
prises, upon the capital ot others, he carried along through an ex- 
tended period of depression, a slow growth of the country, a war that 
bore heavily upon this local region — a large debt, and all the trials 
and vexations which it carries in its train.* It was not until the 
war of 1812 made a good market for his produce, that he began to 
be relieved from embarrassment ; his large clip of wool, his cattle, 
grain, and the produce from his dairy, enabled him to rapidly di- 
minish his indebtedness ; then followed a few years of depression ; 
then came that great measure of dehverance, and source of pros- 
perity to all this region, the Erie Canal ; and participating largely, as 
his possessions enabled him to do, in the rapid advance in the value 
of real estate, in the facilities for market that it at once afforded 
freedom from debt, unincumbered wealth that was soon rated by 
millions, was the reward of his early wilderness advent, and over 
half a century of industry and enterprise. 

In a history of pioneer settlenjent, such as this is intended to be, 
one who bore so conspicuous a part in it, must necessarily occupy 
a considerable space, and yet one entirely inadequate to the task of 
detailing his immediate and intimate connection with the growth 

yon "will be coiiriiiced -n-hen jou shall reUim home. Upon the whole I am quite sat- 
isfied -with the state of things." "Except the little box already acknowldeged, and 
"which ai)peared to have been sent by my booksellers, probably under your orders, I 
have not received a book or a pamphlet from you since your residence abroad." I 
have it from the very best authority that your fi"iend Linklaen is soon to be man-ied 
to a dauuhter of Major Ledyard, a pretty and agreeable girl. Not a bad match I 
tliink on either side. I continue an inflexible bachelor, but have been much smitten by 
Dge-gx of Xaef-az, "who is at present indisputably at the head of my list. Under oth- 
er dates, A. B. to J. W. : — "I have been (juite a recluse and a farmer this summer; 
have not been two miles from home since my return from Philadelphia ; am Jiot raai"- 
ried, nor have made any approacl^s to it, though shall not probably pass another six 
months single, though no particular object has yet engaged my attention. God bless 
and pmsper you." "It is hoped by some, feared by others, and believed by all, that 
the President will decline being a candidate at the next ejection. The candidates "^vill 
be Burw-k, — 1'2, 4 and 1. The event seems pretty doubtful. I have been told (this 
day,) and fullj' belie\"e it, that 20 and 21 "were publicly married a fe"w daysago. Adieu 
once more." < 

* In a letter to a friend after he had had an e.fperience of fifteen years, lie sjiys :— 
" It is 6lo"w realizing from new lands. I will never advise another friend to invest in 
them. Men generally have not the requisite patience for sj^eculatiiig in them." 



PHELPS AOT) goeham's puechase. 339 

and prosperity of this region. His biography alone, if it followed 
him in all his relations to our local region, would be almost its early 
history. To say that his was a useful life, would be but a natural 
deduction from his early advent, and his leading participation in 
laying the foundation of that unexampled prosperity, which now 
exists in a region that he entered, the wheels of his cart, and shoes 
of his horse, making the first impress of civilization upon its soil ! 
The abatement, if any, from his life of usefulness, would be the 
amount of territory he encompassed, and held on to with a tenacity, 
almost amounting to dotage, or an inordinate desire to possess ex- 
tended fields and forests. This ambition was first excited when a 
young adventurer, on his way to jMontreal, in company with John 
Jacob Astor, to seek employment as a school teacher, he saw an 
extensive and beautiful estate, in one of the valleys of Vermont ; 
and traveling in Europe, a few years afterwards, making a sojourn, 
occasionally, at the hospitable seats of immense land proprietors, he 
seems to have been confirmed in his desire for a similar position, 
and to have steadily pursued his object in after life. Great landed 
estates in a country like ours, are a sore evil ; the effects, in various 
ways, bearing heavily and vexatiously upon ■ their immediate 
neighborhoods. It is no "vote yourself a farm" spirit, no sympathy 
in common with agrarianism, that dictates the expression of a hope, 
that by all legal means, the evil may be abated. It would have 
been far better for the beautiful valley, where Mr. Wadsworth cast 
his lot in early life, and with which he became so intimately blen- 
ded, if his ambition for large possessions had been more moderate ; 
but, " may I not do as I will with mine own? " is an interrogation 
he might well have opposed to those who cavilled at his monopoly 
of the soil.* 



* And this reminds the author of an anecdote of an early and venerated cotempora- 
ry of Mr. Wadsworth, the late Augustus Porter. The possession in his family of " Goat 
Island," and all tlie most desirable gi-oimds on the American side, at jS'iagara Falls, 
and the tenacity with which they wei'e Jield, when improvements were sought to 
be made, had occasioned much of murmuring and fault finding, in which the au- 
thor, as the editor of a paper in the same county, had participated, occasionally giving 
some thrusts at what used to be called the " monopoly." While engaged in a preceding 
historical work, the old gentleman had kindly given him the benefit of days and 
nights of conversation upon the early history of all this region ; his jiersonal naiTative, 
that began with his early adventures in the wilderness, his early years spent in survey- 
or's camps, encountering hardships and privations ; his after long years of toil. At 
the close of this intei-view, suffering under bodily infirmities, partly consequent upon 
all this, he obi5erved : — " Now you have my whole histoiy ; you have seen how I 



340 PHELPS AND G0EHA3l's PUECHASE. 

At an early period — almost as soon as the farming operations of 
the Wadsw orths were fairly commenced — James VVadsworth gave 
much of his attention to agricultural improvements. He maybe said 
to have given the impetus, in this state, to the application of science, 
the heeding of the simple teaching of nature, the elt motion of rural 
labor from mere uninstructed handicraft, to the position and the dig- 
nity it has been rapidly assuming. He had cotemporaries, co-opera- 
tors — there were perhaps those before him in the state, who had 
labored in the same field — but he had entered upon the work with 
an earnestness, with practical views, and aided with his pen and 
his purse, effectual measures, that helped to mark a new era in 
agricultural improvements. Practical in his views upon all sub- 
jects, his theories and recommendations occupied the middle ground 
between a judicious and healthy reform in the cultivation of the 
earth, and stock breeding, and the extravagancies of mere theorists. 
The practicability and the usefulness of a thing with him were always 
allied. Had he been in the place of Mr. Jefferson, his spirit of enter- 
prise may have dictated the erection of a saw mill upon an eminence, 
to be propelled by wind, but before he had ventured upon the ex- 
periment, he would have seen how his saw logs were to be got up 
the steep ascent. 

His, was a mind too active to repose upon the possession of 
wealth, or fall into supineness and inactivity, when the stimulus of 
gain had in a measure subsided. It reached out after new objects, 
when old ones were accomplished. Education, — education of the 
masses, allied to political economy, in all its later years, became 
with him, if not a hobby, an object of intense interest. He was not, 
unmindful of the higher interests of religion, but even those he would 
have made secondary in the economy of life, believing that educa- 
tion of the mind was the broad superstructure upon which all of 
spiritual as well as temporal good should be based. As the possessor 
of property, he urged upon the wealthy of the state, by strong ap- 
peals, that it had no secm^ity short of the education of the masses* 
out of which alone wou'd grow a respect for the laws, and vested 
rights. He was the patron of J. Orville Taylor, in his first move- 
ments ; had essays upon education, upon political economy, tracts, 

have earned -vrliat I possess ; upon the whole, do you not think that I should have the 
privilege of mana^uig it as best suits my choice and incHnations?" There -n-as cer- 
tainly no convenient way of meeting the rebuke, or answering the interrrogatoiy. 



PHELPS AND GCRHAJIS PURCHASE. 341 

printed and distributed through the state, at his own expense ; en- 
hsted newspapers in the cause of education, by paying them for 
setting apart a space for its discussion ; aided i-n the establishment 
of the District School Journal, and paid salaries to public lecturers, 
to go through the State, and arouse public attention to its impor- 
tance. If the system of District School Libraries did not originate 
with him, (as there are some reasons to suppose it did,) it had the 
benefit of his early and efficient aid. In the way of agricultural 
improvement, he had essays printed and distributed, and was an 
early and efficient patron of Judge Buel, in the starting of the 
Cultivator, at Albany 

A love of order, system and regularity, was one of his leading 
characteristics. This is strikingly exhibited in his correspond- 
ence, and the careful manner in which it was preserved ; and 
equally so in the written instructions to his agents. His office 
clerks he reminded of the maxim : — "Every thing in its place, and 
a place for every thing;" and they were forbidden to hold any con- 
versations with those who came to the office to do business, on 
the subject of party politics, but instructed to interest themselves, 
and hold conversations "in reference to schools, and the means of 
their improvement." His out-door clerk, or farm agent, w-as in- 
structed to " frequently visit every farm, make suggestions to ten- 
ants ; see how they manage affairs, see that every farm has growing 
upon it good and wholesome fruit ; look to the compost heaps and 
manure ; see that the premises are made conducive to health." All 
short comings, negligencies, and slovenly, or bad management, you 
are to report to the office. Your inquiries should be : — " Are the 
gates in good order ? Is the wood-pile where it ought to be ? Are the 
grounds around the house kept in a neat and wholesome manner ? 
Are the sheds, and yard fence around the barn in a good state of re- 
pair ? The land agent should make suggestions to the tenants on 
the leading principles of good husbandry, with frequent reference 

ISToTE. — In a letter to Mr. Traup, after he had succeeded to the Pulteney agency, in 
1805, iMr. Wadsworth urges the setting apart of land in each township " for a school 
house, meetinghouse, glebe, and pareouag'^"- He adds : — "I am not superstitious, but 
I beUeve in Christianity ; I am no partisan, but I believe m the piety of patiiot- 
ism ; and amidst the afflictions of this wayward world, it appears to nie that the sweet- 
est consolations that attend advanced life, is a recollection of substantial benefits con- 
fen'edupon our country of having contributed our full mite to theinj})rovement and 
happiness of our fellow men ; especially to that portion of them whose tlestinies are in- 
fluenced more or less by our decisions, and by the situations, which, under Providence, 
xre are 2)laced." 



342 

to sound morals, founded on the sanction of religion and just 
reasoning ; and also the unappreciahle importance of the edu- 
cation of youth, and of a vigilant attention to the state of com- 
mon schools in the lessees' district. Shade trees must be about 
each house. From a look or two about the garden or house, you 
can easily ascertain if the occupant drinks bitters in the morning, 
or whiskey with his dinner. If he drinks bitters, you will find his 
garden full of weeds." 

To a natural love of rural scenery, skirted and dotted with foi^ests 
and shade trees,had been added observation in European travel where 
time had enhanced their beauty and value. In England, in tact, 
he had learned to love trees, and appreciate the importance of their 
preservation ; and in nothing has he so distinctly left traces of him- 
self, as in the beautiful woodland scenery and magnificent forest 
trees, so much admired, in the immediate valley of the Genesee. 
With the same forecast that enabled him to estimate the prospec- 
tive value of lands, he saw far ahead what this whole region is now 
beginning to realize, the evil of destroying the native forests, with- 
out planting and rearing trees for future practical uses, as well as 
ornament. 

The personal character of Mr. Wadsworth may mostl}' be infer- 
red from this imperfect sketch of him, as the Pioneer and founder 
of settlements. Almost his entire history is blended with this local 
region — its early settlement and progress ; though he took a deep 
interest in public affairs, it was in the retirement of private life, 
from which he would seem to have never had a disposition to be 
drawn by any allurements of official stations. His private corres- 
pondence, the ability with which he discussed various subjects of 
political economy, scientific agriculture and education, evince a 
clear, sound judgment, strengthened by judicious, practical read- 
ing ; indeed, his library, like all the appointments of his farms, his 
stock, his dwelling, and his garden, is chosen with a strict regard to 
utility. " He was," (says a surviving cotemporary, * ) " a good judge 
of men — seldom erred in his estimation of them — and relying up- 
on his judgment, was even arbitrary in the withholding and bestow- 
al of confidence. He had not the elements of popularity ; or if he 
had, did not choos6 to make them available ; usually absorbed in 
the cares of business, or some favorite study, he was reserved in his 



PHELPS AM) GOEnA:\l's PUECHASE. 343 

deportment, and liable to be regarded as austere and unsocial ; but 
relaxing, as he sometimes would — freeing his mind from its bur- 
dens, he would exercise fine conversational powers, not unmixed 
with humor, wit and gaiety." 

William Wadsworth, as has already been indicated, was the prac- 
tical farmer, and has little of history disconnected with the imme- 
diate supervision of large farming operations, and his early and 
prominent position in the local military organization. At the battle 
of Queenston, after the wounding of Gen. Solomon Van Rensselear, 
the immediate command devolved upon him, and he acquitted him- 
self with honor, and won even something of laurels, upon a badly 
selected and generally unfortunate battle field, where they were 
scarce, and hard to acquire.* He was a bachelor, and a bachelor's 
history has always an abrupt termination. Re died in 1833, aged 
71 years. His property which had been mostly held in common 
with his brother James, was willed to his children; thus leaving the 
large estate unbroken. 

James Wadsworth died at his residence in Geneseo, in June, 
1844, aged 7t> years ; leaving two sons and two daughters. His 
eldest daughter, was the wile of IMartin Brimn:ier, of Boston, at 
one period the Mayor of that city; she died in 1834. His second 
daughter, Elizabeth, was married in January, of the present year, 
in Scotland, to Charles Augustus Murray, second son of the late 
Earl of Dunmore, and a nephew of the Duke of Hamilton ; and 
now resides at Cairo, in Egypt, where her husband is the diplomatic 
representative of the British Government. f His son, William 

* Mansfield, one of the Iriograpliers of Gen. Scott, says that when he had crossed 
the Niai^'ara, at the battle of Queenston, and arrived npon the Heights, he proposed 
to Gen. Wadsworth, instead of assuming the chief command to limit it to the i egular 
force; to which the brave and patriotic Wadsworth- repUed : — "No, you know best 
professionally what ought to be done ; I am here for the honor of my country, and the 
New York militia." And the biographer adds : — " Scott assumed the command, and 
Wadsworth throughout the movements that ensued, dared every danger iu seconding 
his views. Though they had met for the first time, he had become attached to the 
young Colonel, repeateclly during the battle, interposing his own person to shield 
Scott from the Indian rifles, which his tall iorm attracted." This statement, illus- 
trating the modesty of his courage, is confirmed by General Scott. 

t He is the grand son of Lord Dunmore, the governor of the colony of Virginia on 
the breaking out of the Revolution. In 1834, he visited this country,^ upuu^ a tour 
undertaken with the two fold objects of business and pleasure. Upon investigation 
he ascertained that by some defect or omission in tlie Virginia acts of confiscation, 
he could recover a large tract of land that had belonged to his grand-father, but he 
decuned consummating the recovery upon learning that the land was nearly valueless. 
Sti-iking off into the western States, he organized at St. Louis a corps of adventurers, 
and with them visited one of the far western Indian nations — the Pawnees — spend- 
ing the most of a summer with them, joining' them in their nn-al sports, ar,d r--rv.)- 



344 PHELPS AXD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

Wadsworth, who married the daughter of Austin, of Boston, 

resides at the old family mansion in Geneseo. His son, James S. 
Wadsvvorth, who married the daughter of John Wharton, of Philadel- 
phia, is the occupant of a fine mansion he has erected in a grove, 
a short distance north of the village of Geneseo, upon a bluff that 
overlooks a broad sweep of the valley of the Genesee. Upon him, 
in consequence of the abscence of the surviving sister, and the in- 
firmities of his brother, devolves the entire management of the 
Wadsworth estate ; a .ditficult task, with all its diversified interest, 
its numerous farms, and tracts of wild lands ; but one that is well 
performed, not only in reference to the estate itself, but with refer- 
ence to the public interest in which so large landed possessions are 
necessarily merged. The representative of the early Pioneers — 
his father and uncle — " to the manor born" — while he knows little 
of the hardships, self-denial, the long years of trial and anxiety 
which attended the accumulation of the immense wealth he controls, 
he entertains liberal and enlightened views in reference to its man- 
agement and disposition ; is not unmindful, as his frequent acts of 
public munificence bear witness, of the local interests and prosper- 
ity of his native valley of the Genesee. While in many portions 
of our country, the evil attending the accumulation of great estates, 
is much enhanced by the narrow and sordid views of those into 
\/hose hands they fall ; in this, as well as in other instances, in our 
own prosperous region, it has been mitigated. It was something 
more than the mere possession of wealth — something of the more 
legitimate claims to popular esteem — that during the last winter 
created that intense anxiety in the local public mind, when the 
worst fears were entertained in reference to the fate of the packet 
ship, in which the subject of this incidental notice, had taken pas- 
sage on his return voyage from Europe. 

paiiying tliero in their buffalo limits. He is the author of a book of "Travels in Nortli 
America," and of the popular tale of fact and fiction — of wild adventure and roman- 
tic incidents — entitled the " Prairie Bird ; " which the author is informed by one of 
the trade, has reached a tenth edition, in this country. James Wadsworth made the 
acquaintance of the family during; his residence in Europe, and the younger member 
of it brought a letter of introduction to him when he came out to this country in 1834 ; 
thence the acquaintance ; the sequel, after a long delay, consequent upon the mooted 
question of couiitry and residence, has been the transfer of one of the daughters of the 
Genesee from her native valley, to the court and the diplomatic circle of one of the 
fai- off Capitols of the Old World. 

KoTE. — James Wadsworth in his life time, founded a library in Geneseo, erecting 
a building for the purpose, and for its support deeding to its trustees two farms and 
6ome village property. He made itfi'ce to every citizen of Livingston county. It has 



PHELPS AISTD GORHAM's PUECHASE. 345 

In the primitive division of Ontario into Districts, the second 
district, Geneseo, embraced all west of the east line of the present 
towns of Pittsford, Mendon, Richmond. The first town meeting 
for the " District of Geneseo, " was held at Canawagus, April 9, 
1791. John Ganson was chosen Sup. David BuUen, T. C. Other 
town officers : Gad Wadsworth, Nathan Perry, Amos Hall, Israel 
Stone, Edward Carney, Hill- Carney7''Jno. BalVIsaiah Thompson,'' 
Belnj. Gardner, John Lusk, Jasper Marvin, Norris Humphrey. 

It will be observed that these officers were distributed throughout 
the entire settled region west of the line named above. It used to be 
alle^ged that a little feeling of aristocracy had thus early crept into 
the backwoods, and manifested itself in the choice of supervisor — 
shoes, moccasins, and bare feet, were the order of the day, but " Capt 
Ganson, " glorying in the possession of a pair of boots, the choice 
fell upon him. 

The town meeting in 1793, was held at " Miles Gore," Lima ; 
Amos Hall was elected Supervisor. This year, most of all the 
early roads in Livingston, east part of Monroe, and west part of 
Ontario, were laid out and recorded. Store and tavern licenses 
were granted to Gilbert R. Berry, Wm. Wadsworth, Simon Stone, 
Elijah Flowers, Pierce and Ransom, John Johnson, Donald Mc- 
Donald, Ehjah Starr, Abel Willey, Peter Simms, Nathaniel 
Fowler, James Rogers, Wm. Hencher, Abner Migells. Nathaniel 
Perry, Christopher Dugan. 

At that early period, when stock of all kinds ran in the woods, 
ear marks were appended. It is presumed that nearly all of the in- 
habitants had their peculiar marks recorded. In many of the old 
town books, the picture of a hog or a sheep's ear, is drawn, with 
each man's mark delienated opposite his name. In 1796, there 
were upon the town books of the district of Geneseo, the following 
names of those who had chosen ear marks, in all the wide region 
west of East Bloomfield to the western boundaries of the State. 
There is no other form in which so many Pioneer names are re- 
corded : — 



now about 2,300 volumes, and a yearly income of about $600. In liis will, he constitu- 
ted his immediate hems its trustees. Its management devolves upon James S. Wads- 
worth, under which it iscaiTying out the designs of its founder, and promises to become 
one of the largest Libraries in the State. He gave $10,000 the income of which is to be 
■employed in the education of any indigent relative. He also gave $10,000, the in- 
come of which iji to be devoted to the benefit of the common schools of the State. 
22 



346 



PHELPS AUD GOEHAJI S PURCHASE. 



Benjamin Gardner, 
Perez Gardner, 
J. P. Sears, 
Clark Peek, 
Jasper Marvin, 
John Alger 
John Gardner, 
John Minor, 
Solomon Hovey, 
Amos Hall, 
Asa Baker, 
Samuel Barker, 
Paul Da^'ison, 
Samuel Baker, jr., 
Elijah Morgan, 
Thomas Teck, 
Sylvester Marvin, 
Nathaniel Fowler, 
"Wm. Harris, 
Ebenezer Merry, 
Jacob Wright, 
Abraham Wright^ 
S. C. Brockway, 
EUsha Wade, 
Stephen Tucker, 
Amariah Bates, 
Jos. Wright, 
John Parks, 
John Gauson, 
David Seymour, 
Alexander Forsyth, 
John Beach, 
Reuben Thayer, 
Nathaniel Muuarer. 



Henry Redding, 
Joseph Smith, 
Adna Heacock, 
Marvin Gates, 
Daniel Gates, 
Phineas Bates, 
Asahel Burchell, 
Ebenezer Sprague, 
Simon Tiffany, 
Ezra Burchell, 
Seth Lewis, •» 
Alexander Ewing, 
Gad Wadsworth, 
Wm, Markham, 
Ebenezer Merry, 
Wm. Wadsworth, 
Jed. Cummings, 
Benjamin Thompson, 
Lorin Wait, 
Thomas Lee, 
Richard W;ut, 
Wm. Moore, 
John Barnes, 
David Davis, 
Samuel Goodrich, 
Gershom Beach, 
Daniel Fox, 
Aaron Lyon, 
William Layton, 
Hezekiah Fox, 
Joseph Baker, 
Zebulon Closes, 
Asahel Warner, 



Tim. Hosmer, 
John Rhodes, 
David Bailey, 
Thomas Migells 
Theo. Shepherd, 
Ransom Smith, 
Philip Simms, 
Da^ad Markham, 
Reuben Heath, 
Daniel Wright, 
Jos. Arthur, 
P. and J. Sheffer, <• 
Jos. Morgan, 
Enos Hart, 
Abel Wilsey, 
John Morgan, 
Asa B. Simmons, « 
David B. Morgan, 
Samuel Bullen, 
Samuel Stevens, 
George Gardner, 
Joseph Norton, 
Jesse Pangbum, 
Joel Harvey, 
David Benton, 
Jeremiah Olmsted, 
Joshua Wlritney, 
David Pierson, 
Justus Minard, 
Jonathan Gould, 
Abiel Gardner, 
Ezekiel Chamberlin, 
Benjamin Parsons, 



The location of the Wadsworths at Geneseo, made that point the 
nucleus of a considerable neighborhood, though for many years, 
there was but a small cluster of buildings. The business of the 
new settlements was divided between Geneseo, " Old Leicester," 
and WilUamsburg. The Wadsworths resided in their primitive log 
house until 1794, when they built a large block house on the site of 
the old Wadswoith mansion. About 1804, they had erected the 
upright part of the present building, a large square roofed house 
that made an imposing appearance in a region of log houses, where 
a framed house of any size was a rarity. The early clerk of 
James Wadsworth, after he had opened his land office, was Samuel 
B. Walley, an Englishman, the father of Mrs. Dudley Marvin ; he 
was succeeded by Andrew McNabb, who went into the Bath land 
office; Joseph W. Lawrence was first blacksmith in Geneseo. He 
removed to Michigan, where he died in 1845. Among the promi-. 
nent early settlers, were : — Lemuel B. Jennings, Benjamin Squire, 
Wm. Crossett, Rodman Clark, Wm. Findlay, David Findlay. As 



PHELPS AND GOKHAM's PUECnASE. 347 

early as 1804, Mr. Wadsworth visited Marlborough, Connecticut, 
and exchanged lands for farms, thus inducing several families to 
remove, who settled on the road leading to Conesus, among whom 
was David Kneeland ; their location was early called "' Marlborough 
Street." 

The early merchants atGeneseo were Minor & Hall. In 1805, 
one of the firm. Hall, died at Oneida Castle, on his way to New 
York to purchase goods. 

The prominent early merchant of Geneseo was the late Major 
Wm. H. Spencer. He was from East Haddam, Conn. Arriving 
upon the Genesee River in 1803, with his axe upon his shoulder, he 
was a Pioneer of " Fairfield " now Ocrden ; breaking into the wilder- 
ness on Rush creek, about a mile east of Spencer's Basin, he built 
a cabin, kept bachelor's hall, bought provisions of Mr. Shaeffer, 
carrying most of them in on his back ; built a saw mill, and in a little 
over a year cleared fifty acres. Getting ready for his saw mill irons, 
he went to Connecticut, and brought them all the way from there 
with an ox-team. In 1804 he struck the first blow in Riga, making 
an opening, and erecting a house for Mr. Wadsworth, a mile and a 
half southeast of Churchville. 

In 1805 he was induced by Mr. Wadsworth to take an interest 
with him in a mercantile establishment in Geneseo. Starting with 
a large stock of goods for that period, his business extended as set- 
tlement advanced, and there were many early years that his trade 
embraced a wide region. His goods came by the water route from 
Schenectady to the foot of Cayuga Lake, and from thence on wheels 
to Geneseo; the transportation usually costing about 83,00 per cwt. 
Doing principally a barter trade, his furs, tobacco, hemp, grain, pork, 
and maple sugar, were in the earliest years marketed at Baltimore ; 
by wagoning to Arkport on the Canisteo, and from thence by water. 
The first produce shipped at Arkport, was from Dansville ; the sec- 
ond shipments were by Spencer & Co., from Geneseo. This was 
the avenue to market for all the southern portion of Phelps and Gor- 
ham's Purchase, until the JeflTerson embargo ; then it changed to 
Lake Ontario, by wagon roads to the mouth of Genesee River, 
until bateaux were introduced upon the river. These ran from the 
rapids above Rochester, as high up as Geneseo; and Durham boats 
used to ascend to Mount Morris. In the war of 1812 Maj. Spencer 
was the aid of Gen. Wadsworth. Many years since he retired 



348 

from the mercantile business to his extensive farm of flats and up- 
land, on the river opposite Geneseo. He was the owner of the 
beautiful sweep of flats, field after field, along on either side of the 
road from Geneseo to Piffardinia ; and had become one of the largest 
grazers, wool and wheat growers in the valley of the Genesee. He 
died suddenly, of appoplexy, in January of this year, while engaged 
in the active management of the large estate that had been gafned 
by early Pioneer enterprise, industry and perseverance. 

In 1805 Geneseo had but about a dozen dwellings, there were 
two public houses, one kept by Faulkner, and the other by Bishop ; 
John Pierce had started the hatting business. Seymour Welcon 
was a tavern keeper there as early as 1809 or '10. Dr. Sill was the 
early physician. He died in early years ; he was the father of Dr. 

Sill, of Livonia, and Sill of VV'heatland. He was succeeded 

in practice by Dr. Augustus Wolcott, who emigrated west in early 
years. Ashbel Atkins was the early tanner and shoe maker. The 
earliest religious meetings were held in a small building called the 
" town house, " opposite the Park, which also answered the purpo- 
ses of a school-house. Elder Joseph Lindsley was the first resident 
clergyman. That portion of Morris Reserve and the Holland Pur- 
chase lying west of Geneseo, commenced settling along in 1805 and 
'6, and Geneseo being upon the main thoroughfare, its trade, and 
the business of its public houses, derived a considerable impetus 
from it. Much of the trade of the new settlers was done there and 
the grain raised upon Wadsworths. Jones, and Mt. Morris flats, 
was their principal dependence. 



A RECLUSE. 



In 1793 or '4, DeBoui, a Frenchman, wandered to this region with a single 
companion, a negro slave, built a log cabin on Wadsworth's flats, and lived the 
life of a recluse. He was a native of Alsace. While a youth, he quarrelled 
with a friend, wounded him in a duel, fled to St. Domingo, where he served 
as a private sokUer, imtil his superior attainments recommended him for em- 
ployment in the public ser\'ice as an engineer. He finally received the a])poin- 
ment of Inspector General of the liigh roads, and became besides, a consider- 
able planter. The revolution in St. Domingo, breaking out, he fled to Amer- 
ica, bringing with him one faithful servant, tmd the remnant of his estate, a 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 349 

few bills on France. Col. Wadswortli, of Hartford, assumed the negotiation 
of his bills, advanced him money, and granted to him the use of a small tract 
of land, which he came on and occupied. When the Duke Liancourt, and 
his French companions were upon the river, in 1795, they visited him and 
spent the night in his hut. They found him a confirmed misanthrope, but 
pleased at the unexpected visit of his counti-ymen to his backwoods retreat. A 
highly cultivated mind had been soured by misfortune ; and he had contract- 
ed a disgust for his race, seeking no other associates but his faithful §ervant, 
who cooked his food, and cultivated a small patch of ground for their mutual 
sustenance. Unless he is right in assuming that he finally joined a colony of 
his countrymen at Asylum, in Pennsylvania, the author is unable to state 
what became of him. 



HORATIO AND JOHN H. JONES. 



In 1788, John H. Jones had joined his brother Horatio, in Gene- 
va. In the spring of 1789, having obtained a yoke of oxen, the 
two brothers went into what is now Phelps, found an open spot, 
ploughed and planted five or six acres of corn, which they sold on 
the ground. In August of that year, the Indians having promised 
Horatio a tract of land west of the Genesee river, the advent of 
the two brothers, was as related in page 328. 

With the history of 'Horatio Jones, the public have already been 
made familiar. In a previous work of the author's — the history 
of the Holland Purchase,— there is a sketch of his life. Identified 
as he had become, with the Senecas, and sharing largely in their 
esteem and confidence, in his settlement west of the river, he had 
relied upon their intention of granting him his location, in which 
he was not disappointed, as will be seen in connection with the 
Morris treaty. Receiving from President Washington the appoint- 
ment of Indian interpreter, in early years, his attendance upon 
treaties, the accompanying of Indian delegations to the seat of gov- 
ernment, and various other trusts connected with the Indians, em- 
ployed most of his time. When alive, there was none of our race, 
save Mary Jemison, who had been so long a resident of this region. 
He was with Col. Broadhead in his expedition to the Allegany, and 
as an Indian prisoner, he resided at Nunda, as early as 1781. The 



Note. — No one whose lot was ever cast with the Senecas, was a better judo-e of 
their chtiracter ; and no one has in a greater degree. contributed to our knowledge of 
them. His brother gave to the author, some observations of his, in reference tolheir 



350 PHELPS AITD GOEHA]\l's PUKCHASE. 

farming principally devolved upon John H. Jones, and in early years, 
the brothers were large producers, especially of corn, for the new 
settlers who dropped in around and beyond them. At a primitive 
period, when the Indians in all that region, far out numbered the 
whites — at a period too, when they were unreconciled, and unde- 
termined, as to their relations with the whites, Horatio Jones ex- 
ercised a salutary influence; and to him much of, the credit is due, 
for the success of Indian treaties, and the suppression of hostilities. 
The Indian captive boy became the arbitrer between his captors 
and his own race ; and by an inherent strength of mind and energy 
of character, which marked him as no ordinary man, made early 
misfortune the means ot conspicuously identifying himself with the 
early history of all this region : rendering to it essential service in 
years of weakness ; becoming in fact, a founder of settlement and 
civilization upon soil where he began his career as an alien and 
captive. 

Among the captives with whom he became acquainted while in 
captivity himself, was the daughter of Whitmore, of Schenec- 
tady. She was released with him at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, 
soon after which they were married. She died in 1794. He died 
1836, aged 75 years. The surviving sons, are : — William, Hiram 
and Charles, of Leicester, Horatio, of Moscow, Seneca, a Califor- 
nia adventurer. Daughters : — Mrs. Lyman of Moscow, Mrs. 
Fitzhugh, of Saginaw, Michigan, Mrs. Hewitt and Mrs. B. F. Angell, 
of Geneseo, Mrs. Finley, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Two sons, 
George and James, were killed at the British attack on Lewiston, 
in the war of 1812. 

John H. Jones, is now living at the age of 80 years, his mind 
but little impaired, and with the exception of rheumatism, a physi- 
cal constitution but little broken. In 1792, he was engaged 
in the Indian trade at the mouth of Genesee river, upon the 
Allegany river, and Cattaraugus creek. He speaks familiarly 
of being at Buffalo, when the only white inhabitant was Win- 

■warlDie character, wMcli it is believed has never before been published. He used to 
say that their southern 'svars with their own race, their success in them, were often 
their themes in the war dance, and in then wigwams. He has often heard the old 
men relate that the very name of Seneca, had a terror with Indians of other nations. 
At the south and the west, and among the nations of Canada, the Seneca war-whoop 
would alinu<^t conquer of itself. He said that even as late as the war of 1812, the In- 
dians of Canada were struck with terror, when they learned that they must encounter 
the Seneeas in battle. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 351 

ney, a Butler Ranger, and the only resident on all the south 
shore of Lake Erie, west of Buffalo, other than Indians, was " Black 
Joe," a fugitive slave, at the mouth of Cattaraugus creek. Judge 
Jones was a magistrate of Ontario before the division ; soon after 
Genesee was set off, he became one of its Judges, and from 1812 to 
1822, was first Judge of Genesee, and alter that for several years^ 
of Livingston. He was the first supervisor of Leicester, and was 
in all early years, a prominent, active helper in pioneer movements. 
His surviving sons are, George W., Horatio, Thomas J., James M., 
John H., Lucien B., Hiram, and Fayette, all residing in his imme- 
diate neighborhood ; and Napoleon N., of Scottsville. Daughters : 
Mrs. Clute, of Cuylerville, Mrs. William Jones, of Leicester, Mrs. 
James Jones, of Cincinnatti. 

The three brothers, Jellis, Thomas and William Clute, from 
Schenectady, were early settlers at Leicester. Jellis was engaged 
in the Indian trade at Beardstown. Thomas and William settled 
at Gardeau. 

The Rev. Samuel J. Mills was a graduate of Yale College, a na- 
tive of Derby, Conn. He emigrated to the Genesee river in 1795. 
He joined Thomas Morris and others in the purchase of 10,000 
acres of land in Groveland and Sparta, at a period of high prices, 
paying and contracting to pay 86 per acre. The price soon fell 
below $2. He settled near where Col. Fitzhugh afterwards loca- 
ted ; erecting a framed house and moving into it, it burned down, 
with all his household furniture, the family barely escaping. This, 
with his unfortunate investment in lands, embarrassed him, and dis- 
couraged the spirit of enterpiise that had brought him from New 
England. He w^as the early minister, for several years itinerating 
among the new settlements, until the period of his death, soon after 
1800. His "wife returned to Connecticut. One of his sons, the 
late Gen. William A. Mills, was destined to a more fortunate career. 
Thrown upon his own resources at the age of 17, he rented flats 
of the Indians, occupying a shantee, where he lived alone at Mount 
Morris, his nearest neighbors, the Indians. Renting his land upon 
easy terms, and hiring the Indians and Squaws to assist him in 
working it, he was soon enabled to erect a distillery ; and w'hen the 
Mount Morris tract was opened for sale, he purchased from time 
to time, until he became possessed of eight hundred acres, including 
several hundred acres of the fine flats opposite the present village 



352 PHELPS AKD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

of Mount Morris. His Indian name, " Sa-nem-ge-vva," (generous) 
would indicate their esteem for him, and the probity that governed 
his early intercourse with them. He spoke their language fluent- 
ly, and from early associations, was much attached to them. When, 
after their removal, they would occasionlly revisit their old homes 
upon the Genesee, he met them, and treated them as old friends. * 
To his distilling and grain raising in early years, he added grazing 
upon the Mount Morris and Gardeau flats, and became finally large- 
ly engaged in that business ; and successful, as many have witness- 
ed at our early county and State fairs. He was for twenty years, 
the Supervisor of Mount Morris ; a commissioned officer in the 
early military organization in his region, he was upon the frontier 
in the war of 1812, and in later years, rose to the rank of Brig. 
General. He died in 1844, aged 67 years. His sons are : — Wil- 
Ham A., Sidney H., Minard H. and Julius F., of Mount Morris, 
and Dr. Myron H., of Rochester. Daughters : — Mrs. Levi Beach 
of Knox county, Ohio, Mrs. Dr. G. W. Branch and Mrs. William 
Hamlin, of Mount Morris. 

Alexander Mills, another son of the early Pioneer, Rev. Samuel 
J. Mills, located at Olean in an early day, where he was extensively 
engaged in the lumber trade ; now resides in Cleveland. Major 
Philo Mills, another son, located in Groveland, emigrated to Tecum- 
seh, Michigan. Frederick L. Mills, another son, located on flats ; 
he died in 1834; his living descendants are : — George, of Mount 
Morris, Philo, of Groveland, Lewis, of Allegany, and Mrs. Hunt, 
of Groveland. 

The first saw mill west of Genesee river, (save one at Niagara 
Falls, erected by Stedman,) was ei'ected by Ebenezer Allan, on the 
outlet of the Silver Lake. This supplied the first boards had in the 
upper valley of the Genesee. It was built in 1792, and raised by 
the help of the Indians, for the want of sufficient white men in the 
country. In some of the earliest years, Judge Phelps had a distil- 
lery erected near the present village of Moscow. In 1800, Augus- 
tus Porter, as the agent of Oliver Phelps, laid out the village of 



* And tMs, tlie author would here remark, -ff-as not UDlLke the relation that existed 
between most of the Pioneers of the Genesee country and the Indians, where they 
became neighbors in early years, and something of mutual dependence existed. 
Even now, in our cities and Villages, the old Pioneers are pained often in witness- 
ing their degradation, and prompt to resist any iusnlt oflfcred to them. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 353 

Leicester, * on a tract he had purchased of Jones and Smith, and 
opened the direct road across the flats to " Jones' Ford ;" previous 
to which, it had gone via Beardstovvn. He also erected a saw mill 
on Beards' Creek, near the present village of Moscow. For several 
years after 1800, the village of Leicester bore an important relation 
to the new settlements forming in Wyoming, Allegany, and south 
part of Erie. The early and well known tavern keeper, was 
Leonard Stimson, from Albany, who had been engaged in a 
small Indian trade at Mount Morris. He opened the- first store, 
and started the first blacksmith shop. He left Geneseo soon after 
the war of 1812 ; his descendants reside in the neighborhood of 
Rochester. The first physician was Dr. Paul Newcomb. Colonel 
Jedediah Horsford, the present M. C. from Livingston, was an early 
tCdcher of a missionary school at Squaky Hill, and an early land- 
lord at Moscow. Joel Harvey was an early tavern keeper a little 
west of Old Leicester. 

The first town meeting in Leicester, was held at the house of 
Joseph Smith. John J. Jones was elected Supervisor ; George A. 
Wheeler, Town Clerk. Other town officers : — Samuel Ewing, 
Alpheus Harris, Dennison Foster, Abel Cleavland, Samuel Hascall, 
George Gardner, Wm. A. Mills, Joel Harvey, David Dickinson, 
James Dale. 

One hundred dollars was raised to pay " bounty on wolves and 
wild cats, killed by white people." 

By a resolution of a special town meeting, in 1803, town of An- 
gelica was set oflf from Leicester. 

The village of Moscow was started just after the close of the 
war of 1812, under the auspices of the late Samuel M. Hopkins, 
who in company with Benjamin W. Rogers, had pm'chased three 
fourths of the original Jones and Smith's Indian grant, of Isaac 
Bronson. Hopkins built the fine residence now owned by W. T. 
Cuyler, between Cuylerville and Moscow. The first merchant was 
Nicholas Ayrault, late of Rochester ; Wm. Robb, William Lyman, 
and Sherwood and Miller, were early merchants. The early land- 
lords were: — Jessee Wadhams, Wm. T. Jenkins, Homer Sher- 
wood. Early lawyers, other than S. M. Hopkins : — Felix Tracy, 
John Baldwin, George Miles, recently one the Judges of the Su- 

* Name, from Oliver Leicester Plielps. 



354 piiELrs AND goriiam's puncnASE. 

premo Court, of Michigan. Rev. Mr. Mason founded the first 
Presbyterian church. An Academy was founded principally under 
the auspices of Mr. Hopkins, in 1817; the first Principal was Og- 
den M. Willey; his assistants, the Miss Raymonds, one of whom 
became the wife of tlie Rev. Calvin C. Colton, the author of the 
life of Henry Clay, then a settled Presbyterian minister, at Batavia. 
The early physicians were : — Asa R. Palmer, J. W. Montross, 
Daniel H. and Daniel P. Bissell. 

Cuylerville sprung up after the completion of the Genesee Valley 
Canal. W. T. Cuylei", who was an early citizen of Rochester, pur- 
chased the Hopkins house and farm, of Richard Post, a son of the 
late Dr. Post, of New York, in 1830. The village has grown up 
on or near the site of the old Indian village of Beardstown, where the 
road from Perry and Warsaw crosses the canal. Mr. Cuyler 
started the first fordwarding and commission house ; the early mer- 
chants were : — Odell and Evans, and Joseph Wheelock. 

From Ebenezer Allan, the Mt. Morris tract, of four square miles, 
went into the hands of Robert Morris, and afterwards his son Thom- 
as became a joint owner with others. Col. John Trumbull, of 
Revolutionary memory, the celebrated artist, was one of the early 
proprietors. He visited the country, and selected for his residence, 
the site, in the present village, now occupied by George Hastings, 
Esq.; planted an orchard, and made some preparations for building. 
The name, which had been " Allan's Hill," he changed to " Rich- 
mond Hill." Afterwards, when he had abandoned the idea of 
making it his residence, the name was changed to IMt. Morris. The 
early ])roprietors of the tract, other than those named, were : — Mr. 
Fitzsimmons, of Philadelphia, Charles Williamson, Robert Troup, 
the Messrs. Wadsworths, John Murray* & Sons, of New York 
(of which firm Wm. Ogden was a partner,) Benj. W. Rodgers, 
Isaac Bronson, Gen. Mills, and Jessee Stanley, were the prominent 
pioneers of settlement. Deacon Stanley was from Goshen, Conn,, 
his residence was the site now occupied by James Bond. He died 
in 1846, aged 90 years; he was the father of Oliver Stan-ley, of 
Mt. Morris. The village has grown up principally on the lands of 
Messrs. 'Mills, Stanley, and Mark Hopkins, a brother of Samuel M. 



* John K. MiuTay, of Mt. Morris, is the grandson of Joliu Mun-ay, tlie early projuic- 
tor ut Mt. Morris, and owner of the township, now Ogden. 



PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 356 

Hopkins. Mr. Hopkins came on as agent for owners, soon after the 
tract was opened for sale. He died soon after 1820. 



VALLEY OF THE CANASCRAGA 



Following the tract of Mr. Williamson when he broke in from 
Pennsylvania and made a commencement at WilUamsburg, settlers 
soon began to drop into the valley of the Canascraga. In Grove- 
land, other than at Williamsburg, John Smith was the Pioneer. He 
was from New Jersey, a surveyor in the employ of Mr. Williamson. 
He purchased a mile square, upon which he resided until his death 
in 1817. Benjamin Parker, a step son of John Smith, John Harri- 
son, William and Thomas Lemen, William and Daniel Kelley, 
James Roseborough, were among the earliest. Smith in '99, built a 
mill between Hornellsville and Arkport, and as early as 1800 took 
lumber from it to the Baltimore market. Michael Roup was an early 
Pioneer upon the up lands in Groveland, with his son Christain 
Roup, He died during the war of 1812 ; Michael Roup, of Grove- 
land is his son. The early minister that visited the neighborhood was 
the Rev. Mr. Gray ; the first school taught was by Robert M'- 
Kay, in one of the houses that the Germans had deserted. 

The early Pioneers of Sparta, on the Canascraga, between Mount 
Tvlorris and Dansville, were : — J. Duncan, John Clark, Thomas 
Ward, Wm. McCartney, Henry Driesback, Benjamin Wilcox, Geo. 
Wilkenson, Rev. Andrew Grey, John McNair. 

In Groveland, other than those named in another connection : — 
Samuel Nibleck, (Nibleck's Hill,) William Martin, Samuel Stilwell, 
John Vance, Doty, Ewart. 

In reference to all the upper valley of the Canascraga, Dansville 
was the prominent pioneer locahty, as it is now the focus of business 
and enterprise. The Pioneer in the town of Sparta, near the present 
village of Dansville, was Hugh McCartney, who had accompanied 
Mr. Williamson from Scotland, and of whom, the author has no ac- 
count other than the fact of his early advent. Upon the site of the 
village of Dansville, Neil McCoy, was the first settler. He came 
from Painted Post, and located where his step-son, James McCurdy^ 
who came in with him, now resides. The family were four days in 



356 PHELPS Am) GORHAMS PUECHASE. 

making the journey from Painted Post, camping out two nights on 
the way. The only tenement they found, was a small hut built for 
surveyors, where Conrad Welch now resides on Ossian street. At 
this time there was no white inhabitant in what is now the town of 
Dansville. Preparing logs for a house 14 by 18 feet, help to raise 
it came from Bath, Geneseo and Mount Morris, with Indians from 
Squaky Hill and Gardeau. It is mentioned by Mr. McCurdy, in 
some reminiscences he contributed several years since to a local 
history of Dansville,* from which the author derives many facts to 
add to what he has gleaned from other sources, that his mother, Mrs. 
M'Coy, the first season heard of the arrival of Judge Hurlburt's family 
at Arkport, on the Canisteo, eleven miles distant, and as an act of 
backwoods courtesy, resolved upon making the first call. Taking 
her son (McCurdy) with her, she made the visit through the woods 
by marked trees, dined with her new neighbors, and returned in 
time to do her milking, after a walk, going and coming of twenty- 
two miles ! During the first winter they needed no hay for their 
stock, the rushes upon the Canascraga flats furnishing a substitute, 
upon which their cattle would thrive. The Indians belonging in the 
villages along the Genesee river, were almost constantly encamped on 
the flats of the Canascraga, as high up as Dansville, principally engag- 
ed in hunting, though they cultivated small patches of ground. Their 
venison and corn was a part of the subsistence of the new settlers. 

Mr. McCoy died in 1809, childless; his representative, and the 
occupant of his primitive locality, is James M'Curdy Esq., his step 
son. 

The venerable Amariah Hammond, for a long period a patriarch 
of the settlement and village of Dansville, after living to see a young 
and flourishing city grow up in the wilderness, where he so early 
cast his- lot, died in the winter of '50, '51. His large farm, is im- 
mediately adjoining the village, on the main road to Geneseo. 
Daughters of his, became the wives of L. Bradner, Esq., and Dr. 
James Faulkner, both of whom are prominently identified with the 
locality. L. C. Woodruff, Esq., formerly of Lockport, graduating 
in his youth from a printing oflice, and now the principal active 
manager of the Bank of Dansville, a sound and flourishing institu- 
tion, married the daughter of Mr. Bradner, the grand-daughter of 



'Miniature of Dansville," by J. W. Clark. 



PHELPS AND GOKHAm's PURCHASE. 35V 

the early and much respected Pioneer. The first wife of Mr. 
Hammond died in 1798. " She had," says Mr. M'Curdy, "endear- 
ed herself to all of us by her many virtues. When she died, all 
wept who had hearts and eyes." 

The author of the small local history already named, states that 
Mr. Hammond on coming in to explore, slept two nights under a 
pine tree on the premises he afterwards purchased. Early in the 
spring of 1796, " he removed his young family from Bath to this 
place ; his wife and infant child on horseback, his household goods 
and farming utensils on a sled drawn by four oxen, and a hired man 
driving the cattle." Some difficulty occurring in getting the cattle 
through the woods, Mr. Hammond after arriving at his log cabin, 
went back upon his track, and remained in the woods all night, 
leaving his young wife with her infant child to spend the first night 
alone. Mr. Hammond among other instances of the embarrass- 
ments of pioneer life, that he used to relate, said that the first scythes 
he used, cost him a journey to Tioga Point. Two scythes and the 
journey costing him eleven dollars. 

In relating to his London principals the progress of settlement, 
Mr. Williamson says : — "I sold also on six years credit, the west 
half of township No. 6, Gth range," (this includes a large portion of 
the site of Dansville,) to a Mr. Fitzgerald, at 81 50 per acre. He 
sold the land to gentlemen in Pennsylvania for a large profit. The 
purchasers were, a Mr. Wilson, one of the Judges of Northumber- 
land CO., a Mr. C. Hall, a counsellor at law in Pennsylvania, a Mr. 
Dunn, and a Mr. Faulkner. These gentlemen have carried on the 
settlement with much spirit, and Mr. Faulkner is at the head of it. 
They have a neat town, a company of militia, two saw mills and a 
grist mill, and indeed, every convenience. Mr. Faulkner, although 
he came from Pennsylvania, was originally from the State of New 
York, north from Albany. This winter he went down to see his 
father and other connections ; the consequence was, that he moved 



KoTE. — lu " Descriptions of the Genesee country," written by Mr. Williamson, in 
1798, be remarks : — " Of- those settlements begun in 1796, there are two worthy of no- 
tice , ti:atofthe Rev. Mr. Gray, in T. 4, 7th Kange, who removed from Pennsylvania 
"with a respectable part of his former parish, and a Mr. Daniel Faulkner, witli a Jersey 
Bettlement, on the head of Canascraga creek ; both of them exhibit instances of indus- 
try and enterprise. The ensuing season, Mr. Faulkner being ajjpointed captain of a 
company of grenadiers to be raised in his settlement, at the organization of the militia 
of Steuliien, appeared on parade at the head of 27 grenadiers, aU in a handsome uniform, 
and weU armed, and composed solely of the young men of Ids settlement." 



858 PHELPS AOT) gorham's pueohase. 

up about fifteen very decent families, who passed through Albany 
with excellent teams, every way well equipped. He sold to some 
very wealthy and respectable men of Albany, 5,000 acres at a large 
profit. " The Captain Faulkner, who Mr. Williamson names, was 
Daniel P. Faulkner, an early patroon of Dansville, as will be infer- 
red. " Capt. Dan. Faulkner," was his familiar backwoods appella- 
tive, and thence the name — Da/zs-ville." He was the uncle of Dr. 
James Faulkner. 

Soon after settlement commenced, Mr. Williamson had erected 
a grist and saw mill, on the site afterwards occupied by Col. Roches- 
ter. David Scholl, who was Mr. Williamson's mill-wright at the 
Lyons mills, erected the mills. The early mill-wright of the Gen- 
esee country, emigrated many years since to Michigan. Mrs. Sol- 
omon and Mrs. Isaac Fentztermacher, of Dansville, are his daughters. 
The mill was burned down soon after 1800, after which, before re- 
building, the neighborhood had to go to Bosley's mills at the foot of 
Hemlock Lake. 

Jacob Welch came from Pennsylvania to Dansville, in 1798. 
He died in 1831. His widow still survives, aged 86 years. His 
sons, Jacob, Henry and Conrad, are residents of Dansville. His 
daughters became the wives of John Beltz, Peter Labach, Will- 
iam Kercher, and Valentine Hamsher. The decendants of Jacob 
Welch, residents of Dansville and its vicinity, number over one 
hundred and thirty. The part of his farm inherited by his son 
Conrad Welch, embraces the Dansville canal slip and basin. Mr. 
Conrad Welch, a prominent and worthy citizen of Dansville, gave 
the author some account of the early advent of his father, and 
others: — "My grand-father, Jacob Martz, resided near Sunbury, 
Northumberland county. Pa. The advent of Charles Williamson 
through that region, his road, and all that was going on under his 
auspices, created a good deal of interest for the Genesee country. 
Jacob Martz came out and viewed it, and returning, reported so 
favorably, that an emigrant party was soon organized. It consisted 
of Jacob Martz, his son Conrad Martz, George Shirey, Frederick 
Barnhart and Jacob Welch, and their families. The party came 
via Bath, and up the Conhocton. From what afterwards became 
Blood's corners, the emigrants had their own road to make through 
to Dansville. A winding road had been underbrushed, but no 
streams bridged, and high winds had encumbered it with fallen trees 



PHELPS Am) GOEnA]\l's PURCHASE. 859 

They were three days coming in from Bath, camping out two nights. 
Hearing of our approach, the new settlers in Dansville nearly all 
turned out, met and assisted us. Prominent of the party was Mr. 
Faulkner, who was alvvay ready to assist new settlers by such acts 
of kindness. Occupying an old deserteo hut, and quartering our- 
selves upon the settlers in their log cajins, we got through the 
winter, and in the spring erected log cabins for ourselves. When 
we arrived, Samuel Faulkner had opened a small framed tavern, 
near where Mr. Bradner's store now is. In addition to the Faulk- 
ners, Hammond, and M'Coy, there was here when we arrived, 
Win. Phenix, James Logan, David Scholl, John Vandeventer,* the 
father-in-law of Esq. Hammond, Jared Erwin, Wm. Perrine. There 
was three or four families along on the road to Williamsburg." 

" There had been, w^here Dansville now is, a pretty large Indian 
settlement, fifteen or twenty huts were standing when white settle- 
ment commenced, and several Indian families lingered for several 
years in the neighborhood." 

" Game was very abundant ; the new settlers could kill deer 
about when they pleased. After yarding their sheep, they would 
often have to go out and scare the wolves off. In cold winter 
nights, the wolves would set up a terrific howl in all the surround- 
ing forests. They attacked cattle ; in one instance, they killed a cow 
of my grand-father Martz. Steel traps, dead falls and pits, were 
put in requisition, and soon thinned them out. There was fine fish- 
ing in the streams. Mill Creek, especially, was a fine trout stream. 
Pigeons were so abundant, that almost uniformly, newdy sowed 
fields had to be watched almost constantly." 

* A brother of Isaac Vandeventer, the early Bettlerou Buffalo road west of Clarence 
Hollow. 

Note. — The author copies from the ijianuscripts of W. H. C. Hosmer, Esq., the fol- 
lowing- account of an " ancient grave at Dansville : " — 

" Before the Revolution, according to Indian tradition, a battle took place on a hiU 
a few miles distant from the village of Dansville, between the Canisteo Indians and 
those living on the ' 6a-nope-ga-go,' [Canascraga] Creek. A chief of the latter, of 
great renown, was slain, and burietl with great pomp by his tribesmen. When the 
whites first settled here, the spot where he fell was marked by a large hole dug in the 
shape of a man pivistrate, Avith his arms extended. An Indian trail led by the place, 
and the passing red man was accustomed to clear away the diy leaves and brush 
blown in by the winds. The chief was interred in an old burial place near the present 
site of tlie Lutheran Chiu'ch in the village of DansviUe. The ground was formerly 
covered with graves to the extent of two or three acres. His monument consisted of 
a large pile of small stones, gathered fi-om time to time by the natives, from a hiU, a 
mile distant ; passing, they would add to the heap, by tossing on it, after the manner 
of the ancient Caledonians, their rude tributes of affection. " 



360 PHELPS AND GOEHAM'S PURCHASE. 

The primitive settlers of Dansville were mostly Lutherans, or 
Dutch Reformed. The first meetings were held from house to 
house ; Frederick Barnhart or Adam Miller, usually taking the 
lead. The Rev. Mr. Markle, a Lutheran preacher from Geneva, 
occasionally visited the place, as did Elder Gray. The first loca- 
ted minister, was the Rev. Mr. Pratt. The Rev. Hubbard, a 

son-in-law of Moses Van Campen, was an early settled minister. 
He was the father of John Hubbard, of Oswego. 

Jonathan Rowley was an early landlord in Dansville ; he erect- 
ed for a tavern the first brick house in the village. He died in 
1830, childless; the only representative of the family, residing in 
Dansville, is a niece of Mr. Rowley> the wife of Samuel W. 
Smith. 

William Perrine, has been before named as one of the primitive 
class of Pioneers, died in 1847, at the advanced age of 93 years.^ 
He was a soldier of the Revolution in the Pennsylvania line. His 
son, Peter Perrine, occupies the farm on which his father originally 
settled, near the village. William Perrine, of South Dansville, and 
Robert Perrine, of West Sparta, are also sons of the early Pioneer. 
Mrs. Robert Thompson, of Dansville, is a daughter of his. 

Harman Hartman was one of the earliest of the Pennsylvania 
emigrants. His descendants are numerous, residing principally in 
Dansville and its vicinity. 

Hugh McCurdy, Esq., in a statement made for the author of the 
published reminiscences of Dansville, already alluded to, says: — 
" The first tanner and currier was Israel Vandeventer ; the first black- 
smith, James Porter ; the first marriage was that of Wm. McCartney 
to Mary McCurdy ; our first school was taught by Thomas Mac- 
lain ; the first established preacher and founder of a church among 
us, was the Rev. Andrew Gray ; the first Justice of the peace was 
Dr. James Faulkner, (uncle to the present Dr. James Faulkner ;) 
the first Supervisor was Amariah Hammond ; the first death was 
that of Captain Nathaniel Porter ; the first P. M. was Israel Irwin ; 
the first merchant goods were brought in by Captain Daniel P. 
Faulkner ; the next merchant, Jared Erwin. He died of the pre- 
vailing fever during the war of 1812 ; his widow became the wife 
of Col. James M'Burney ; Mrs. Gansevoort, of Bath, is his daugh- 
ter." 

Joshua Shepherd, L. Bradner and S. W. Smith, were early and 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 361 

prominent merchants of Dansville. Mr. Shepherd died in 1629 ; 
Mr. Bradner is the President of the Bank of Dansville ; Mr. Smith 
is a son of the early landlord on the main road from Avon to Cale- 
donia. 

Pioneer settlers of Dansville, other than those named : — Natha- 
niel Porter, John Haas, Thomas MeWhorter, Samuel Shannon, 
James Harrison, Daniel Hamsher, Mathew Dorr, Oliver Warren, 
a nephew of Dr. Warren, of Revolutionary memory. 

Col. Nathaniel Rochester became aresident of Dansville in 1810, 
purchasing a large tract of land, which includes the greater portion 
of the water power now within the limits of the corporation. The 
old Williamson nulls vi-ere embraced in his purchase. He added 
to the mills, a paper mill, the pioneer establishment in that line, in 
all western New York. * In 1815, Col. Rochester sold his land, 
mills, and water power, to the Rev. Christian Endress from the 
borough of Easton, Pa., and Mr. Jacob Opp, from Northampton Co., 
Pa. Mr. Endress resided in Dansville but a year, when he return- 
ed, and resumed the charge of a German Lutheran cougregation in 
Easton. He died in Lancaster, Pa., in 1827. His interest in 
Dansville was purchased by Dr. James Faulkner. Judge Endress 
and Dr. Endress, of Dansville, are his sons. Mr. Opp died in 
Dansville, in 1847, aged 84 years. Henry B. Opp, of Dansville, is 
his son. 

North Dansville, in which is the site of Dansville village, was in 
the county of Steuben, until 1822, when it was attached to the 
town of Sparta, Livingston county. In 1846, the old town of 
Sparta was divided into three towns — of which the town of 
North Dansville, three miles square, was one. The town of Dans- 
ville, is still in Steuben county. 

Although it is one of the pioneer localities, of the Genesee coun- 
try, and commenced in an early period to be a place of considera- 
ble business, Dansville was but little known in the northern por- 
tion of western New York, until after the completion of the Gene- 
see Valley Canal ; and even now, away from the main eastern and 
western thoroughfares, as it is, it may well be presumed that this 
work will fall into the hands of many readers, who have neither 

* The pure water at Dansville and fine water power, has invited this branch of manu- 
factures there to a great extent. There were four large paper mills there in 1844, 
manufacturing over $100,000 worth of paper per annum. 
23 



362 PHELPS AXD G )IMIAM's PURCHASE. 

seen the bustling, prosperous large village, hid away among the 
southern hills, nor perhaps, read any account of it. For this rea- 
son, a brief topographical sketch will be given — ^a departure from 
the uniform purpose of the author, in this history of pioneer set- 
tlement. 

Though some sixteen miles from the Genesee River, it is in fact 
at the head of the Genesee Valley.* Coming down through the nar- 
row gorges of Allegany and the southern portion of Livingston, the 
river has but an occasional broad sweep of flats, until it reaches Mt. 
Morris. The flats of the river are continuous, and mostly of uni- 
form width, from a few miles above Rochester, to Mount Morris, 
from which point gradually narrowing, they follow the course of the 
Canascraga to Dansville, where, after widening out, and gradually 
rising in beautiful table lands, they come to an abrupt termination, 
and are hemmed in by hills. The ^Canascraga, Mill Creek, and 
Stony Brook, coming down from the highlands, through narrow 
gorges, enter the valley and unite mainly within the village limits. 
The Canascraga enters the valley through a narrow pass called 
" Pog's Hole," through which, climbing along a steep acclivity, and 
then descending to a level with the stream, passes the Hornellsville 
road. Upon the opposite side of the stream from the road, through 
the whole length of the narrow pass, is a perpendicular ledge of 
rocks, an hundred feet in height. Beyond this pass, the valley 
widens out occasionally, into small areas of intervale, but ranges of 
highlands rise in near proximity on either hand. The scenery is 
wild and romantic, at every step reminding the contemplative ob- 
server, of the written descriptions of the passes of the Alps. Mill 
creek making in Irom another direction, has a rapid descent for a con- 
siderable distance, before reaching the valley, furnishing a succes- 
sion of hydraulic facilities, as does the Canascraga, where it passes 
from the highlands, and for a considerable distance below. The 
aggregate durable water power of both streams, before and after 
their union, is immense — largely improved now — and equal to any 
present or prospective requirements. 

At the head of the valley, is a succession of promontories, over- 
looking the town, upon one of which is a rural cemetery, not unlike the 
Mt. Hope, at the other extremity of the Genesee Valley. Moulder- 

* The term " vallev " is here used not in its enlai'ged sense — the term " flats " would 
perhaps be better. 



863 

ing in its shades, upon its slopes and summits, are all that was earth- 
ly of nearly all the Pioneers, who, entering that beautiful valley, 
when it was a wilderness, laid, amid toil, disease, and privations, the 
foundation of that busy scene of enterprise, prosperity and happi- 
ness. Admonished may their successors and inheritors be, that 
their spirits may be lingering upon that summit, guardians and 
watchers, over those to whom they bequeathed so rich an inherit- 
ance. Let that elevated city of the dead, be to them a Mount Sinai 
or an Horeb, from which to catch, as if by inspiration, a moiety of 
the stern resolves, the moral courage, the patriotism, of the Pioneers. 

The main street of tlic town is parallel with, and at the base of 
an unbroken range of high land, rising to the height of nearly five 
hundred feet — steep, but yet admitting of cultivation. Cultivated 
fields and woodlands, rising one above another, form the back ground, 
or rural landscape ; in the foreground are gentle offsets, or table 
lands, at the termination of which, the Canascraga winds along the 
base of another similar hill, or mountain range ; to the left are the 
headlands, that have been named, and to the right, the Canascra- 
ga, winding along between the two ranges of highlands, flows to min- 
gle its waters with the Genesee, at Mount IMorris. 

The Genesee Valley Canal, terminates a half mile from main street, 
where it is fed from Mill creek, and a mile below, at Woodville, 
receives the Avaters of the Canascraga. The canal terminating 
too far from the central business locality of the town, individual 
enterprise has supplied a side cut, or slip which remedies the incon- 
venience. 

In reference to the v/hole scenery of the southern portion of the 
Genesee country, the upper vallies of the Genesee, the Canascraga, 
the Allegany, the Cattaraugus, the Conhocton, and the Canisteo, it 
may here be remarked, that the traveller or tourist of what Mr. 
Williamson called the " northern plains, " who breaks out for a 
summer excursion to the east, the north or the west, may be told 
that a day's journey to the south, will bring him to a region of hill 
and valley, rivers and creeks, mountains and rivulets, cultivated 
fields and wild woodlands, which should satisfy any reasonable desire 
for the romantic and picturesque. And if health is the object of 
his summer wanderings, no where can he breathe " freer and deeper," 
of a pure and invigorating atmosphere — or drink from purer springs 
and streams, — than, in all our local southern region. 



364 PHELPS JJH) GOEHAll's PUKOHASE. 

WILLIAM FITZHUGH. 



He was of a family, the name and services of which are inti- 
mately blended with the history of the stirring events of the Rev- 
olution in the colony of Maryland. The father, Col. William 
Fitzhugh, held the commission of Colonel in the British army, 
retired upon half pay, when the troubles between the colonies and 
the mother country commenced. He resided at the mouth of the 
Patuxent, where he had a large estate, a farm, mills and manufac- 
tories. Exercising an unusual share of influence with his fellow 
citizens, the British colonial Governor made him the extraordinary 
ofier of a continuance of his rank and half pay, and the quiet 
possession of his property if he would remain a neutral in the con- 
test. Though an invalid, by reason of physical infirmities, he re- 
jected the overture, surrendered his commission — (or rather leit it 
upon the Governor's table when he refused to receive it) — encour- 
aged his two sons to take commissions in the "rebel " army, taking 
himself a seat in the Executive council of Maryland, to assist in 
devising ways and means for his country's deliverance. His fine 
estate, easy of access from its locality, was of course doomed to pil- 
lage and the torch. In the absence of the father and sons, a small 
British party landed, but resistance came from an unexpected source. 
The Revolutionary wife and mother, Mrs. Fitzhugh, armed the slaves 
upon the estate, and carrying herself cartridges in her apron, went 
out to meet the invaders, and intimidated them to a hasty retreat. 
It was however, but a warding off of destiny for a brief season. A 
stronger party came and ruthlessly executed their mission, the 
family fleeing to an asylum fifty miles up the river where it remain- 
ed until the contest ended.* 

The son. Col. Peregrine Fitzhugh, was first commissioned in a 
corps of light horse, but in a later period of the war was enrolled in 
the military family of Washington. DO^See Sodus. William, 
the more immediate subject of this brief sketch, served as a Colonel 
in a division of cavalry, and after the war, was a member of the 
Maryland Legislature. Previous to 1800 Col. Peregrine Fitzhugh 
had made the acquaintance of Mr. Williamson, and had visited the 



* Principally from Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Reyohitiou." 



PIIELPS AISD GORHAm's PURCHASE. 365 

Genesee Country. When Col. William Fitzhugh first visited the 
country in 1800 in company with Col. Nathaniel Rochester, Major 
Charles Carroll, and several others, he brought a letter of introduc- 
tion to Mr. Williamson from his brother, for himself and Col. Roche-s- 
ter ; Major Carroll as would seem from the reading of the letter, 
having previously known him. During this visit, in addition to a 
third inter(*st in the "100 acre Tract" at the Falls of the Genesee, pur- 
chased in company with Messrs. Rochester and Carroll, jointly with 
Mr. Carroll he purchased on the Canascraga, in Groveland and Spar- 
ta, 12,000 acres of Mr. Williamson, paying $ 209 per acre.* Their 
tract embraced the old site of Williamsburg, Mr. Williamson having: 
abandoned his enterprise of forming a town there after the failure 
with his German colony. Leaving their property in the care of an 
agent. Messrs. Fitzhugh and Carroll did not emigrate with their 
families until 1816, when a division of the joint purchase was 
made. 

Col. Fitzhugh died in 1839, aged 78 years; his wife, who was the 
daughter of Col. Daniel Hughes, of Washington county, Md., died in 
1829, aged 56 years. The surviving sons and daughters are : — 
Wm. H. Fitzhugh, residing upon the old homestead in Maryland ; 
Dr. D. H. Fitzhugh, residing upon the Canascraga four miles from Mt. 
Morris; James Fitzhugh, in Ohio county, Ky.: Richard P. Fitzhugh, 
on the Canascraga near his brother Daniel ; Henry Fitzhugh, in 
Oswego ; Mrs. Dr. Frederick F. Backus, of Rochester ; Mrs. 
James G. Birney, of Kentucky ; Mrs. Gerrit Smith of Peterboro ; 
Mrs. John T. Talman, of Rochester; Mrs. Lieut. J. W.Swift, 
of the U. S. Navy, residing at Geneva. A son, Judge Samuel 



* Their tract was ])rincipally up lands ; a strange clioice it was thought at the time, 
when they were oflfered the Mt. Moms tract, with its beautiful sweeps of flats, at $.3,00 
per acre. But they had come from a region where timber was scarce, and they had 
learned to appreciate its value and with reference to intrinsic relative value of soil ; 
time, and improved systems of cultivation are fast demonstrating that their clioice of 
lands was far less injudicious than it used to be considered. The late Major Spencer 
told the author that the ui3 lands upon his fine farm were worth as much per acre as his 
flats. ^ '■ 

^ Note. — The Shaker settlement at the junction of the K.ishaqua creek with tho 
Canascraga a few miles above Mt. Morris, where the Genesee Valley canal enters the 
valley of the Canascraga, is a part of the original Fitzliugh and Carroll tract. The 
society purchased of Dr. Fitzhugh, a few years since, ITOO^acres, for which they paid 
|y2,000 ; and to which they have added several hundred acres. Their organization is 
after the manner of the societies at Niskayuna and New Lebanon ; they arc enteqDri- 
sing and prosperous ; themselves and their beautiful location one of the many objects 
pf interest in the southern jjortiou of our local region. 



366 PHELPS AXD GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

Fitzhugh, residing at Mt. Morris, died in 1849 ; and a younger son, 
Robert, died in Groveland, in 1836. There are over 80 descend- 
ants of Col. Wm. Fitzhugh, 



CHARLES CARROLL. 



His connection with Messrs. Rochester and Fitzhugh, and his 
advent to this region with them in 1800, will have been noticed. 
He had previously in the year 1798, with a brother, Daniel Carroll, 
been here upon a tour of exploration. They came via the Susque- 
hannah route, with pack mules, made a general survey of the coun- 
try, were pleased with it, but made no investments as will be ob- 
served, until 1800. Their residence in Maryland was at Bellevue, 
near Hagerstown ; the earlier home of the family had been upon 
the site of the city of Washington ; the capital of the United States, 
now occupies a portion of the estate of their father, Charles Carroll, 
who was a cousin of " Charles Carroll of Carrollton." 

The author has little of the history of Major Carroll, disconnected 
with that of his associates, Messrs. Rochester and Fitzhugh. He 
died at his residence in Groveland, in 1837, aged GO years. His 
living sons are: — Charles Carroll, the occupant of the homestead, 
recently the representative in Congress of the Livingston and On- 
tario district, and a State Senator ; Dr. Daniel J. Carrol of New 
York ; William T. Carroll, a clerk of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. Daughters became the wives of Henry Fitzhugh, 
of Oswego ; Moses Tabbs, of Washington, D. C. ; Dr. Hardage 
Lane of St. Louis. The eldest son was the private Secretary of 
Mr. Clay, at Ghent ; becoming soon after the clerk of his father, 
who held the office of Receiver at Franklin, Missouri, he was killed 
in an afFrav which occurred in that tow^n. 



There came to the Genesee country with Messrs. Fitzhugh, 
Rochester and Carroll, or at about the same time, Col. Jonas Hog- 
mire, of Washington county, Md., Wm. Beal, and .John Wilson, of 
Frederick county. Col. Hogmire purchasecj of Mr. Wadsworth, 
on the river, in Avon, 1500 acres of land, upon which his sons Con- 



PHELPS AND GOEHA]\l's PUECHASE. 367 

rad and Samuel Hogmire now reside. The lather never emigrated. 
Messrs. Beal and Wilson purchased a large tract on the Canascraga, 
in Sparta. 



AVON". 



Gilbert R. Berry, was the first permanent settler in what is no 
Avon.* He was from Albany. He married the daughter of the 
early Indian trader, Wemple, who has been named in connection 
with the Rev. Mr. Kirkland. Engaging in the Indian trade, he 
located first at Geneva, and in 1789, removed to the Genesee river, 
erected a log house on the west side of the river, near the present 
bridge, opened a trade with the Indian village of Canawaugus, es 
tablished a ferry, and entertained the few travellers that passed 
through on the old Niagara trail. He died in '96 or '7, and was 
succeeded by his widow. The Holland Purchase being opened for 
settlement soon afterwards, the " Widow Berry's " tavern was 
widely know in all early years, west of the river ; and besides lur- 
nishing a comfortable resting place for early Pioneers, in her prim- 
itive tavern, some of the best wives and mothers of the Genesee 
country, were reared and fitted for the duties of life. Her daughters 
became the wives of Geo. Hosmer, Esq., of Avon, E. Clark Hickox, 
the early merchant of Batavia and Buffalo, John Mastick, Esq., the 
Pioneer lawyer of Rochester, and George A. Tiflany, whose father 
was one of the earl}' printers of Canandaigua. 

Capt. John Ganson, was the pioneer settler following Mr. Berry. 
Holding a commission in the Revolutionary war, he had accompanied 

* This is assumed from the best information the author has been able to obtain . 
William Rice ■was at Avon in the same year, and must hare settled there soon after 
Mr. Berry. Morgan and William Desha, were upon the " Desha Flats," as early as 
1789, claiming under an Indian gi'ant ; but the title failing, they removed to Canada, 
There vrere there in that year, besides, several heads of famihes, who are supposed not 
to have been permanent settlers. The son of the Wm. Rice named above, was the 
first born upon the Phelps and Gorham's Purchase. He was named "Oliver Phelps 
Rice." Judge Phelps gave him an 100 acres of land in Livonia, which he occupied 
when he became of age. Mrs. Rice was a good specimen of the strong minded, ener- 
getic women, who were the } loneer motiiers of this region. Skilled as a midwife and 
nurse, she went from settlement to settlement, and from log cabin to log cabin, often 
supplying the place of a physician. Her many acts of kindness are gratefully reniem- 
bered'by the early Pioneers. Mrs. Gould of Lima, and Mrs. Rhodes of Geneseo, are 
her daughters. 



368 

the expedition of Gen. Sullivan. Before the treaty was concluded, 
in 1788, he revisited the country, and selected a fine tract of land 
on the river, about two miles below Avon. His sons John and 
James wintered in a cabin in 1788, '9, upon the premises; and the 
father and family came on in the fall of 1789. During the follow- 
ing winter they erected a rude " tub mill " on the small stream that 
puts into the river on the Markham farm. It was a small log 
building; no boards could be had; the curb was made of hewed 
plank ; the spindle was made by straightening out a section of a cart 
tire ; the stones were roughly carved out of native rock. There 
was no bolt, the substitute being hand sieves, made of splints. It 
was a rude, primitive concern ; but it would mash the corn a little 
better than a wooden mortar and pestle ; and was quite an acquisi- 
tion to the country. It preceded the Allan mill a few months, and 
if we shall call it a mill, it was the first in the Genesee Valley. The 
buckwheat that has been mentioned, produced upon Boughton Hill, 
was ground or mashed in it, having been carried there twenty miles 
through th€ woods, by Jared Boughton, in the fall of 1789 ; and the 
producer, and mill boy (or man) lives to eat buckwheat cakes, now in 
the winter of 1850, '51. Borrowing the language of Shakspeare, and 
applying it to this one of the few survivors of that early period, may 

" Good digestion "wait on appetite. 
And health on both." 

Capt. Ganson had claimed title either under the Indian grant, or 
under the Lessees, which failed, and Col. Wm. Markham becam..8 
his successor. He resided for several years afterwards, four miles 
east of Avon, on the main road. As early as 1788, about the period 
of the commencement of surveys upon the Holland Purchase, Capt. 
Ganson, had pushed on to the west side of the river, and purchased 
the pioneer tavern stand of Charles Wilbur, on the then verge of 
civilization, one mile east of the present village of Le Roy. In this 
location he was widely known in early years. His house was the 
home of early land agents, surveyors, explorers and pioneer settlers. 
He was both loved and feared by the Indians ; they came to him 
for counsel and advice ; and when they became turbulent in their 
drunken frolics and threatened outrage, he would quell them by his 
determined will, or with his strong arm. He was even ultra in his 
Revolutionary principles. When he came upon the river, he and 
the Butler Rangers — the tories of the Revolution, were far from 



369 

being agreeable neighbors ; he was impatient to see the last of them 
on their way to Canada. 

Township 10, R. 7, (Avon,) was sold by Mr. Phelps to "Wads- 
worth, Lewis & Co." Those interested in the purchase, were : — 
William Wadsworth, of Farmington, Conn., (a cousin of James 

and William,) Wells of Hartford, Isaiah Thompson, Timothy 

Hosmer, and Lewis. The price paid was Is 6d, N. E. cur- 
rency per acre; "a high price at the period, in consequence of the 
large amount of open flats." Dr. Hosmer, and Thompson, were the 
only ones of the proprietors who became residents. Major Thomp- 
son, who had not brought his family, died the first season, of billious 
fever. His son Charles afterwards became a resident, and died in 
Avon, many years since. Mrs. Tompkins, of Batavia is a grand- 
daughter of Major Thompson. 

Dr. Timothy Hosmer was a native of West Hartford, Conn. 
With a little more than an ordinary academical education, he be- 
came a student of medicine with Dr. Dickinson, of Middleton. 
But recently settled in practice in Farmington, at the breaking out 
of the Revolution, he entered the service of the colonies, as a sur- 
geon, in .the Connecticut line. Serving in that capacity through 
the eventful crisis, he retired, happy in the recollection of its glori- 
ous result, but like most of those who had achieved it, poor and 
pennyless, a growing famih^ dependent on his professional services 
for support. In the army he had acquired a high reputation in his 
profession; especially for his successful treatment .of the small pox, 
at Danbury, where an army hospital had been established for patients. 
The discovery of Jenner, having been but recently promulgated in 
Europe, its efficacy was a mooted question ; with a professional 
boldness which was characteristic of the man, he espoused the new 
discovery, and used it with great success. His mate, in the army, 
was Dr. Eustis, afterwards Secretary of War. 

Personally acquainted with Mr. Phelps, and hearing of his pur- 
chase in the Genesee country, partly from a love of adventure and 



t/ 



Note. — James and John Gaiison the sons, were early landlords at Le Roy and 
Statiord. Mr.s. Warren residing near Lockport, is a daughter. James Ganson is still 
living, a resident of Jackson, Michigan; his sons, are John S. Gan.sou, of Buffalo, 
President of the Bank of Attica ; Joseph Ganson, a merchant of Brockport, Hiram, 
Cornelius and Corneil, residents of Miclaigan, and another son resides in Milwaukee. 
Tha sons of John Ganson, are Dr. Holtou Ganson of Batavia ; John Gan.son, an Attor- 
ney in Buffalo ; and James Ganson, Cashier of the Marine Bank of Buffalo. 



370 PHELPS AND GOEHAil's PUECHASE. 

new enterprise, and partly to escape from a large practice that was 
requiring too much of constant toil, in 1790, he visited this region 
in company with Major Thompson, with whom, for themselves and 
associates, he made the purchase of a township. Spending the 
summer of '90 in Avon; in "91 he brought on his two sons, Fred- 
erick and Sydney ; erecting a log house, the first dwelling on the 
present site of Avon, where Mr. Merrill's house now stands. His 
whole family joined him in 1792. Coming into the wilderness, with 
other objects in view, he was forced by necessity — by the absence 
of others of his profession, to engage in practice, which he contin- 
ued until relieved by others- Among the old pioneers who in those 
primitive days, were in detached settlements throughout a wide 
range, you will hear him spoken of; and especially do they remem- 
ber his disregard of fatigue, his long, night, wood's rides, prompted 
more by a spirit of benevolence than professional gain ; his good 
humor, and the kind words he always had to cheer the desponding 
settler, who was wrestling with disease, or the hardships of pioneer 
life. The Indians early learned to appreciate his professional skill, 
and personal good offices. They named him " At-tta-gus," the healer 
of disease. In a period of doubt as to their relations with the new 
settlers, he helped to reconcile them and avert a threatened danger. 

When Ontario was organized he became one of its Judges, and 
succeeded Mr. Phelps as first Judge, which office he held until he 
was sixty years of age, the constitutional limitation. He possessed 
naturally a fine literary taste ; and his well selected library was an 
anomaly in the backwoods. In his correspondence with Messrs, 
Wadsworth and Williamson, which the author has perused, there are 
indications of the scholar, the poet,* and always, of ardent, enlight- 
ened patriotism. 

He died in November, 1815, aged 70 years. His surviving sons, 

* His early poetic effusions may be found in the, files of tlie old Connecticut Courant 
In a letter to James Wads'n'ortli, intended to reach him on the eve of his departure 
from New York to Europe, after wishing liim "a happy and prosperous Toyage," he 
congratulates himonthe "pleasing prospect," then "openingto the cause of freedom;" 
and adds: — " May the resplendent day of Liberty pervade the universe, and radiate 
every region where man is found. It has ever been my opinion that the spark of 
freedom, which was kindled in Boston, in 1775, and syiread with great rapiditv 
thioughout the United States, would not be chcumscribed in its Umits to the shores of 
the Atlantic. The men of reflection, in Europe, find that the extensive territory of 
the United States, can be governed with the greatest facihty, and with a degree of hap- 
piness, unknown to eastern conntiies, without the pompous nothin*, called a King, 
the dissij>ated pageantiy of a Ucentious court, or the enormity of a civil list computed 
by millions ; and it is therefore not a matter of sui-prise, to see France, whose armies 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 371 

most of whom came to the comitry as junior pioneers, are William 
T., of jMeadville, Pa.; George, of Avon, who in early years occu- 
pied a conspicuous position at the bar of W. N. York, the father 
of Wm. H. C. Hosmer, the author of " Yonnondio," " Themes of 
Song," and other poems ; who is justly entitled to the position that 
has lieen awarded him in the front rank of American scholars and 
poets. Geo. Hosmer pursued his early studies under the tuition of 
the Rev. Ebenezer Johnson of Lima ; in 1799 entered the law 
office of the Hon. Nathaniel W. Howell, as a student ; and in 1802 
was admitted to practice, opening his office in Avon, then the only 
lawver west of Canandaigua. In the war of 1812 he was upon the 
frontier as the aid of Gen. Hall. He is now G9 years of age. 
Timothy, the early and widely known landlord at Avon, resides at 
the Four Mile creek, near Fort Niagara ; Sylvester, in Caledonia ; 
Albert in Hartland, Niagara co. An only daughter of Judge Hos- 
mer i^ the wife of the Rev. Flavel F. Bliss, of Churchville. Fred- 
erick Hosmer, deceased, was a son of Judge Hosmer ; he was the 
first merchant at Avon ; another son, A. Sydney Hosmer, was long 
known as a tavern keeper at Le Roy ; he emigrated to Wisconsin, 
where he died in 1835. 

Colonel William Markham, who had first settled at Bloomfield, 
moved to Avon in 1790. In Bloomfield he had purchased an hundred 
acres of land, and paid for it with the proceeds of one acre of po- 
tatoes. With the proceeds of that land, he purchased and paid for 
the fine farm on the river, now owned by his son, Guy Markham, 
which has rented for $1,000 per year. He became a useful, public 
spirited citizen, and his name is mingled with the reminiscences of the 
town, in all early years. He died in 1827, or '8. His surviving sons 
are : Guy and Ira, of Rush, Wayne, on Ridge Road, near Clarkson, 
Vine, in Michigan. Daughters : — Mrs. Whitney, Michigan ; Mrs. 
Boughton and Mrs. Dr. Socrates Smith, of Rush. 

Gad Wadsworth was a distant connexion of James and William, 
and came in with them, in their primitive advent in 1790, in care, 
personally, pf the stock. James and William having become, by 
purchase from first hands, land proprietors in Avon, he settled 

have fought the battle of Independence, in America, victorious OYer the minions of des- 
pots. And if I may be allowed the privilege of a prediction, I shall have but little 
hesitation in pronouncing, that the extu-pation of tyrants and tyi'anuy from Eiu'ope, 
is but a small remove from the present era." 



372 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

there in 1792, his farm being what are now the farms of his son, 
Henry Wadsworth, and Asa Nowlen, upon which are the Avon 
springs. He died soon afte-r 1820, nearly 80 years old. Another 
son of his, Richard, inhabited that part of the farm upon which the 
springs are situated, and sold to Mr, Nowlen. He emigrated to 
Sandusky. 

Major Isaac Smith was the early and widely known landlord, four 
miles west of the river, commencjing there as early as 1800. Un- 
der his roof, a large pioportion of the Pioneers west of the river, 
have found rest and refreshment ; and from under it, it may also be 
added, have come not less than half a dozen excellent wives and 
mothers. They were : — Mrs. Isaac Sutherland, and Mrs. E. Kim- 
berly, of Batavia, Mrs. John M'Kay, of Caledonia, Mrs. A. Sidney 
Hosmer, formerly of Le Roy, Mrs. Faulkner, of Dansville, and 
Mrs. Sylvester Hosmer, of Caledonia. S. W. Smith, of Dansville, 
and Nelson Smith, of Michigan, are sons of the early landlord. 

The next landlord at Avon, after Gilbert R. Berry, was Nathan 
Perry. He built a framed house, north side of square, on the site 
now occupied by the dwelling of Mr. Curtis Hawley. Perry emi- 
grated to the Connecticut Reserve, and was succeeded by Sydney 
Hosmer, who made additions to the house. In 1806 James Wads- 
worth built the hotel ou the corner, and soon after sold it to Sidney 
and W. T. Hosmer, after which it was long known as the Hos- 
mer Stand.* During the war, and for many years after, it was 
kept by Timothy Hosmer. The old landlord and landlady are still 
alive, the owners and occupants of one of the finest farms, in that 
region of fine farms, Niagara county. The first school house was 
a log one, erected a little north of the Episcopal church. Judge 
Hosmer and the Wadsworths, built saw-mills on the Conesus, as 
early as 1796. The first meetings were held in the log shool house. 
Judge Hosmer usually reading the Episcopal service. Mr. Crane, 
an Episcopal clergyman, and Rev. Samuel J. Mills, \yere early 
itinerant ministers. 

Jehiel Kelsey yet survives, of the early Pioneers of Avon. He 
has reached his 80th year. The old gentleman speaks familiarly of 
early events, of the period when not over twenty or twenty-five 

* Previous to the sale, however, David Findlay and Joshua Lovcjoy were occupants. 
Lovejoy removed to Buffalo, (j;:^" See account of the massacre of Mrs. Lovcjoy, at 
the destruction of Buffalo, in History of Holland Pm-chase. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 373 

men could be raised in all the Genesee valley, to put a log bridge 
over Deep Hollow, in the now city of Rochester. In 1798 he 
brought the first cargo of salt that came from Onondaga, by water, 
and around the Portage, at Genesee Falls. He paid for each bushel 
of salt, a pound of pork, and sold his salt at $10 per barrel. He 
well remembers seeing companies of surveyors fitting out, and load- 
ing their pack horses at Avon, to break into the Holland Purchase. 

In 1805, a Library was established at Avon. The trustees were : 
A. Sidney Hosmer, Job Pierce, Joshua Lovejoy, Jehiel Kelsey, 
Elkanah Whitney, James Lawrence, Wm. Markham, George Hos- 
mer, Stephen Rodgers. 

In 1810, " a number of persons being stated hearers of Rev. John 
F. Bliss, of Avon," met and organized " Avon Religious Society." 
Samuel Bliss and Asa Clark presided. Trustees : — John Pierson, 
George Hosmer, Nathaniel Bancroft, John Brown, Ezekiel Mosely, 
William Markham. 



AVON SPRINGS. 



The rapidly increasing celebrity of Avon Springs, as a summer resort for 
invalids, pleasure parties, and tourists ; invited as well by the heahng waters^ 
as by charming scenery, the broad, cultivated fields, and beautiful forests, that 
surrciund them, will perhaps render some early reminiscences of them not lui- 
interesting : — They were known to the Jesuit Missionaiies, and Joncaire, un- 
der French dominion, and they recognized their use by the Indians, for medi- 
cinal or healing purposes. The Seneca name for them was " Can-a-wau-o-us," 
(foetid, bad smelling water,) and thence the name of their village, in the im- 
mediate neighboi'hood. When settlement connnenced, sixty years since, they 
were surrounded by a dense cedar marsh. The waters of the springs Howed 
into a basin or pond, covering a space of several acres, the margin of which, 
was pure white sand, thrown up by the action of tlie water. The waters were 
clear and transparent, and shaded by the dark forest, the spot had a secluded 
and romantic aspect. It was first noticed as a resort of the wild pigeon. 
Indian paths were found leading to the spot, from the old Niagara trail, and 
from the branch trails ; and the Indians told the earliest settlers of the efticacy 
of the waters in cutaneous diseases. At an early period in the settlement of 
the country, as many will remember, the measles, (as it was called*) was 

* If tlie medical faculty will excuse a non-professor for the introduction of a new 
name, in their vocabulai-y, it was the " Genesee itch," to which men as well as animals 
were subject in this region, when first coming here — endemical in its character — or 
rather incidentJil to forest life here. The Jesuit missionaxies were afiiicted with it. 



374 PIIELPS AXD GORHAil's PURCHASE. 

prevalent among the hogs. It was ol)served, that when thus afflicted, they 
would go and wallow in the mud and sulpluir water, penetrating the forest appa- 
rently tor that object. In early years, Miss Wemjile, a sister of Mrs. Berry, 
upon the recommendation of Dr. Hosmer, bathed in and drank the waters, and 
was lelieved; and other similar cases occurred. Soon after the war of 1812, 
visitors from abroad began to resort to the Springs, and Richard Wadsworth, 
at the suggestion, and with the aid of George Hosmer, Esq., erected a small 
bathing establishment, and shower bath. After the purchase of the property 
by M)-r Nowlen, and the erection of a boarding house by Mr. Houghton, a 
new impetus was given to improvements; visitors began to increase, from year 
to year, improvements have been progressive ; until sick or well, there is no spot 
more inviting in western New York. But a pioneer history was only intended. 



REMINISCENCES OF GEORGE HOSMER. 



Mr. Hosmer confirms the position, that the domestic hog will go back to 
his native state, soon after he has re-entered a forest life. In early jears of 
settlement, there were droves of hogs, generally roaming over the uplands, 
along the Crenesee river, the immediate progenitors of A\hich had been those 
domesticated by the Indians, and those brought here by Butler's Kangei-s. 
They were wild, as are those now seen by California adventurers in crossing 
the Isthnnis of Panama. They were untameable, and when wanted for 
pork, or when ravaging badly fenced fields, were hunted and shot hke other 
wild game. 

In 1V95, Frederick Hosmer, at the instance of Mr. Wilhamson, went to 
reside at the mouth of the river. Erecting a log shantee, he kept a few 
goods to barter with the Indians for furs, and tiade with the batteaumen that 
used to make that a stopping place. George Hosmer was frequently with 
him. British deserters from Niagara would frcfpiently come down the Lake. 
Ujion one occasion, some deserters were followed by a yottng Lieutenant and 
a <niardof 8 men in a boat. Ari'i\ ing at the mouth of the river, and hear- 
in"- nothing of the refugees, the Lieutenant hunted and fished ; lending his 
fowling piece to two of his soldiers who were going up to the Falls, they 
too deserted. The Lieutenant |)ursued them to Orange Stone's, in Brighton, 
where he heard of them, but they were fleeing to some new settlement in the 
" land of liberty," so rapidly, that he gave up the chase, and returned to Fort 
Niagara, minus two of his guard, added to the deserters. The unfortunate 
Lieutenant was the afterwards Lord Hill of the Peninsular war, the hero at 
the storming of Badajos. 

Desertion fi'om the then British Fort, Niagara, was frequent as soon as the 
soldiers knew that there were new settlements in this quarter — places of re- 
fuge ; — Indians were hired by the British oflicers to pursue them, and failing 
to arrest, to shoot them. White hunters, and citizens ^^siting the Fort, 

The French soldii-re of De jSTouville's army, were attacked with the " rheum." The 
families of early settlers in some h)calities, lefore the forest was cleai-ed away would 
be attacked with a cutaneous disease, more inveterate, and otlrei-wisc materially differ- 
ing from the common "itch.'* 



PHELPS AKD GORHAm's PUECHASE. 375 

and intending to pass through the wilderness to the eastward, were furnished 
with a medal, or a token, to show the Indians thus employed, to prevent ar- 
rest. " Tuscarora," or " Stitf-armed George," was thus employed, and he 
was one of the worst specimens of his race ; a terror wherever he was known. 
He shot and scalped several deserters, carrying his trophies to Fort Niagara 
for reward. Upon one occsision, when George Hosmei- was left to take care 
of the shantee in the absence of his brother Frederick, Geoi-ge demanded 
rum, which being refused, the Indian pushed him back against a post, and 
striking at his head with his tomahawk, the blow was averted, making an 
impression upon the post which evidenced the intention of the revengeful 
savage. Mr. Hencher and his hired man came to the rescue. * 

Ebenezer Allan was i-ather imposing in his appearance, usually mild and 
gentlemanly, but he had a bold and determined look ; could easily put on the 
savage chai-acter. He had acquired a distaste for civilized hfe. Mrs. Dugan, 
his sistei-, was mild and amiable — somewhat accomj^lished. 

The "On-ta-gua," or Horse Shoe Pond, a mile and a half below Avon 
village, abounded in fine fish, especially large black bass, in an eaily day ; 
and it was also the favorite resort of ducks, geese, and other wild water fowl. 
Speckled trout were plenty in the river, and in all the tributary streams. 
There was no pickerel, or pike, above the Genesee Falls, until 1810, wdien 
William Wadsworth, and some others, caught pickerel in Lake Ontario, and 
other Lake fish, and put them into Conesus Lake; and pickerel abound there 
now; have been taken weighing 20 lbs. As the pickerel came down from 
the Lake into the Genesee river, the trout disappeared. 

The most troublesome wild animals in early days, other than bears and 
w^olves, were the foxes and wild cats preying upon the fowls, pigeons preying 
upon the newly sowed crops, chipmucks, ravens, hawks, owls, wood chucks, 
and black squirrels. There were a few turkey buzzards upon the river, and 
a few turkeys upon the uplands ; several panthers were killed. The crow, 
the gTey squirrel, the quail, came in with civilization. New species of bii'ds 
have been coming in almost yearly. The opossum is a new comer. 



LIMA. 



Paul Davison, in the summer of 1788,t about the period that Mr, 
Phelps was negotiating his Indian purchase, in company with his 
brother-in-law, Jonathan Gould, came from the valley of the Sus- 
quehannah, to look out a new home in the Genesee country. Passing 



* He finally met Ms deserts. Enlisting a.s an ally of the western Indians against 
Wayne, he was among the killed. 

t If the author's informant is con-ect in the year, this was the first advent of an 
household west of the Adam's settlement, in Bloomfield. 



376 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

the last white habitation at Geneva, they pursued the Indian trail 
to the present town of Lima ; where, finding a location to suit them, 
they erected a cabin and commenced making an opening in the 
forest. Going to the Indian lands at Canawaugus, they planted and 
raised a patch of corn and potatoes. Their location was about one 
mile south of the Indian trail, near the west line of the town. Af- 
ter some improvements upon their cabin, such as the luxury of a 
bark roof, and a hewed plank floor, and gathering the small crop 
they had raised upon Indian lands, they returned to the Susquehan- 
nah, and in the spring of 1789, Mr. Davison, with his family, con- 
sisting of his wife and her mother, and two children, came to make 
his permanent home in the wilderness. He was accompanied by 
Asahel Burchard, The family and household implements were con- 
veyed in an ox cart, Mr. Davison and his companion sleeping under 
the cart, and the family in the cart, during the whole journey. 
Their route was Sullivan's track, the whole distance from the Sus- 
quehannah to where the Indian trail bore off in the direction of 
Canawaugus. They had bridges to build occasionally, and logs to 
cut out, before they left the track of Sullivan ; after that, they had 
their own road to make for the greater part of the way to the place 
of their destination. The journey consumed three weeks. Mr. 
Davison raised a crop of oats and turnips, the first of any kind raised 
in Lima; and in that and a few succeeding years, cultivated Indian 
lands at Canawaugus. For two years, the family pounded all their 
corn in a stump mortar, getting their first grinding done at the Al- 
lan mill. Captain Davison and some of his Pioneer neighbors, took 
six or seven bushels of corn to Canawaugus, hired an Indian canoe, 
and took it down to the mill. On their return up the river, their 
canoe upset, and their meal became wet and unfit for use ; a small 
matter to make a record of, some readers will say, and yet, let them 
be assured, it was no small matter with those new beginners in the 
wilderness. In 1790, Mrs. Davison's mother died ; it being the 
second death in the Genesee country after settlement commenced. 
A daughter of Captain Davison, -who became the wife of James 
Otis, of Perry, Wyoming county, was the first born white female 
west of Geneva. Captain Davison died in 1804, aged 41 years, 
after having become a successful farmer, and the owner of a large 
farm. Mrs. Davison died in 1844, aged 80 years. 

Dr. John Miner and Abner Migells, had settled in Lima, in the 



PHELPS AND GCEHAm's PUECHASE. 377 

summer of 1790 ; and it is presumed that Mr. Burchard had then 
brought in his family ; as his name, as the head of a family, occurs 
in the census of that period. He still survives to enjoy the fruits 
of his early enterprise and life of toil. " He was," says a corres- 
pondent of the author, " always a kind and good neighbor, and much 
esteemed by the early settlers." 

Lima was called, in an early period, " Miles' Gore," the fraction 
of a township having been purchased in the name of Abner Miles, 
or Abner Migells, as the author finds it on some of the early records. 
According to the recollections of William Hencher, he must have 
left Lima soon after settlement commenced there ; as he was early 
engaged with his father in trading trips to Canada, and erected a 
public house at Toronto in the earliest years of settlement there. 

The brothers, Asahel and Matthew Warner, Miles Bristol, and 
others, who were early and prominent Pioneers in Lima, the author 
hopes to be able to speak of in another connection. At present, he 
has not the necessary datas. 

Reuben F. Thayer must have settled in Lima before the close of 
1790. The venerable Judge Hopkins, of Niagara county, was in 
the fall of 1789, with a number of companions, returning to New 
Jersey, after a trading excursion. Passing Canawaugus, they as- 
sisted Gilbert R. Berry in erecting his first log house ; and the next 
day, finding a " settler just arrived by the name of Thayer, with 
logs ready for a house," they stopped and assisted him. 

Wheelock Wood came to Lima in the winter of 1795, locating 
upon the present site of the college, where he commenced clearing, 
and erected a log cabin. He remained there a few years, and re- 
moved to Livonia, and from there, in 1807, to Gainesville, Wyoming 
county. He died in 1834. 

In an early period of settlement in Lima, ancient remains, and 
relics of French occupancy were to be seen in various localities. 
The " Ball Farm," so prolific in these, and so often alluded to by an- 
tiquarians, is within the town. Upon the farm of Miles Bristol, a 
short distance west of Lima village, upon a commanding eminence, 
the embankments and ditches of an ancient Fort were easily traced. 
In ploughing upon his farm, in early years, Mr. Bristol picked up 
several hundred pounds of old iron, chiefly French axes. 

James K. Guernsey, in connection with the Nortons, of Bloom- 
field and Canandaigua, and afterwards upon his own account was 
24 



378 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

the early prominent merchant of Lima. He removed 'to Pittsford, 
where he died in 1839. George Guernsey, of Michigan, is his son ; 
Mrs. Mortimer F. Delano, of Rochester, is his daughter. For many 
years, his store in Lima commanded the trade of a wide region. 



CHAPTER VI. 



PIONMER EVENTS IN WHAT IS NOW WAYNE COUNTY. 



In the winter of 1788, '9, John Swift and Col. John Jenkins, pur- 
chased T. 12, R. 2, now Palmyra, and commenced the survey of it 
into farm lots, in March. Jenkins being a practical surveyor, built 
a camp on the bank of Ganargwa creek, about two miles below the 
present village of Palmyra. His assistants were his nephew, Al- 

pheus Harris, Solomon Earle, Baker, and Daniel Ransom. One 

morning about 2 o'clock, the party being asleep in their bunks, their 
fire giving light enough to show their several positions, a party of fonr 
Tuscarora Indians and a squaw stealthily approached, and the Indi- 
ans. putting their guns through the open spaces between the logs, se- 
lected their'victims and fired. Baker was killed, Earle, lying upon his 
back, with his hand upon his breast, a ball passed through his hand 
and breast, mutilated his nose, and lodged under the frontal sinus 
between his eyes. Jenkins and Ransom escaped unhurt, and en- 
countering the murderers — Jenkins with his Jacob staff, and Ran- 
som with an axe — drove them off, capturing two of their rifles and 
a tomahawk. In the morning they buried their dead companion, 
carried Earle to Geneva, and gave the alarm. The Indians were 
pursued, and two captured on the Chemung river. The nearest jail 
being Johnstown, it was feared they would be rescued ; if an at- 
tempt was made to cany them there ; what in later years would be 
called a Lynch court, was organized ; they were tried and execu- 
ted at Newtown, now Elmira. The execution was after the Indian 
method, with the tomahawk. They were taken back into the 



379 

woods, and blindfolded. One of the executioners dispatched his 
victim at a blow; the other failed ; the Indian being a stout athletic 
fellow, parried the blow, escaped, was followed by a possee, who 
caught and beat him to death with stones and pine knots ! This 
was the first trial and execution in the Genesee country. Horrid 
and lawless as it may now seem, it was justified by then existing 
exigencies. 

jDuring the summer, John Swift moved into the township, erect- 
ing a log house and store house at "Swift's Landing a little north of • 
the lower end of Main street, Palmyra. 

Before the close of the year 1789, Webb Harwood, from Adams, • 
Berkshire county, with his wife came in and erected a cabin on the 
rise of ground near first lock west of Palmyra, upon the farm now 
owned and occupied by Dennison Rogers. He was accompanied 
by Noah Porter, Jonathan Warner and Bennet Bates, single men. ■ 
The author is disposed to regard Harwood as the Pioneer, although 
it is generally supposed that Gen. Swift had previously brought in a 
family. No family but that of Mr. Harwood and David White 

WoTE. — The Indian party had tlieir hunting camp near the surveyors, and had seve- 
ral tinges shared their provisions ; the incentive was hunger. One of them that 
escaped was " Turkey" •tt^ell knswn m after years upon the Genesee river. He had a 
scar upon his face, the mark of a blow from Jenkin's Jacob staff. Daring the war ot 
1812, he contracted the small pox upon the frontier ; came to Squaky Hill. The In- 
dians dreading the spread of the disease, carried him to a hut in the pine woods near 
Moscow, where he was left to die alone. Earl recovered. He was the early feny man 
at the Seneca outlet. There have been many versions of this affair. The author de- 
rived liis information from the late Judge Porter, and from Judge John H. Jones, whose 
informants were Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish, who were present at the trial and 
execution. He has a*lao a printed account of it in the Maryland Journal, of April 1789. 
Alpheus Hams was living a few years since, if he is not now, at Spanish HiU, a few 
miles from Tioga Point. He says the Indians were " tried by committee law." 

Note. — John Swift was a native of Litchfield County Connecticut. He took an 
active part in the Revolutionary war, and at its close, with his brotlier Phijetus, was 
an emigrant to the disputed tenitory in Pennsylvania. He held a commission, and ^ 
was at the battle of Wyoming ; and was also engaged in the " Pennamite " war, where 
he set tire to a Pennamite block house. He became a commissioned officer in the 
earliest organization of the militia and in tlie campaign of 1814 upon the Niagara Fron- 
tier, he was commissioned as Brig Gen. of N. Y. volunteers. In reconnoitering the 
enemy's position and works at Fort George, he captured a picket guard, and while in 
the act of recei\-ing their arms, one of the prisoners shot hira tlirough the breast ; an at- 
tack fi-om a superior British force followed ; the woimded General rallied his men, 
commenced a successful engagement, when he fell exhausted by his wound. "Never" 
says an historian of the war, "was the coimtry called upon to lament the loss of a fiiin- 
er patriot or braver man." The Legislature voted a sword to his oldest male heir. 
The gift fell to Asa R. Swift of Palu4yra who was di-owned in Sodus Bay in 1820 or 21 
by the upsettint;' of a boat while engaged in fishing. The sword is now in the hands 
of Henry C. Swift, his son, a resident o.f Phelps. His companion Ashley Van Duzer, 
was also drowneil ; his widow a sister of Mrs. Gen. Brooks, became the wife of Gen. 
Mills of Mt. Monis. and now resides at Brook's Grove. The Rev. Marcus Swift, of 
Michigan is a son of Gen Swift. 



880 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

is enumerated in the census taken in the summer of 1790. Mr. 
Harwood died in 1824. Wm. Harwood, of Ann Arbor, Mich- 
igan is a son of his ; his daughters became the wives of Isaac Mace, 
of Perry, Wyoming co, and Coe, of Kirtland, Ohio. 

The settlers that followed, in 1790, "91, '92, in the order in which 
they are named, or as nearly so as the author's information enables 
him to arrange them, were : — Lemuel Spear, David Jackwa^, 
James Galloway, Jonathan Millet, the Mattisons ; Gideon Durfee 
the elder, his sons Gideon, Edward, Job, Pardon, Stephen, and 
Lemuel ; Isaac Sjn'inger ; William, James and Thomas Rogers ; 
John Russell, Nathan Harris, David Wilcox, Joel Foster, Abraham 
Foster, Elias Reeves, Luther Sanford ; and to what was Palmyra, 
now Macedon, in addition to those that have been named, Messrs, 
Reid, Delano, Packard Barney, Brown, Adam Kingman, Hill, Lap- 
ham, Benj. and Philip Woods. 

Lemuel Spear, was a soldier of the Revolution, as most of the 
Pioneer settlers of Palmyra were. He was from Cummington, 
Mass. The family came on runners, before the breaking up ot the 
ground in Feb '90, with two yoke of oxen, some cows and sheep, 
having little more than a bare track and blazed trees to guide them 
from Vienna to their destination, a mile above Palmyra village, where 
Mr. Spear had purchased land of Isaac Hathaway, for twenty cents 
per acre. The season being mild, they turned their stock out upon 
the open flats, some of which had been cultivated by the Indians, 
where they got along well through the winter and spring ; the fam- 
ily consisting of the parents and nine children, living in a covered 
sleigh and in a structure similar to the Indians camp, until they had 
planted a few acres in the spring, when they built a log house. 
•Bringing in a year's provisions, and killing deer whenever they 
wanted fresh meat, or bartering for venison with the Indians, they 
got along very well until after the harvest of their few primitive acres 
of crops. In the first winters, the Indians camped upon the flats and 
were peaceable, good neighbors, hunting and trapping, occasionally 
getting a beaver, the last of a colony, selling their furs and skins to 
traders and bantering their surplus venison with the new settlers. 
Lemuel Spear died in 1809 ; his surviving sons, are: — Ebenezer 
Spear, of Penfield, Abraham Spear, of Jeddo, Orleans county, 
Stephen Spear, residing upon the old homestead. A daughter is 
the wife of Dr. Mallory, of Wisconsin. 



PHELPS AISTD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 381 

Ebenezer Spear is now in his 78th year. Leaving Palmyra in 
early years he went to sea, engaged in mercantile business in Bos- 
ton, returned to Palmyra in 1804, married for a second wife, a 
daughter of Francis Postle, an early tailor in Canandaigua and Pal- 
myra, from the city of Prague, in Bohemia, moved to North Pen- 
field in 1807. He was one of the Carthage Bridge company, and 
opened a tavern at Carthage, while the bridge was constructing. 



REMINISCENCES OF EBENEZER SPEAR. 



In 1790, after we had got settled at Palmyra, the wife of our predecessor 
in the wilderness, Webb Harwood, in a delicate state of health, preceding 
child-birth, required wine, and her indulgent husband determined ujwn pro- 
curing some. At his request, I went to Canandaigiia, found none — to 
Utica, and was equally unsuccessful — and continuing my journey to 
Schenectady, procured six quarts of wine of Charles Kane, I was fourteen 
days making the journey on foot, carrying my provisions in a knapsack, 
sleeping under a roof but four of thirteen nights. 

Our first boards came from Granger's saw-mill on Flint Creek, several years 
after we came in; Captain Porter built the first framed barn, and my father 
the next one. I burned the first lime kiln west of Seneca Lake, for General 
Othniel Taylor, of Canandaigua. In 1794, or '5, Abraham and Jacob 
Smith built mills in Farmingtou, on the Ganargwa Creek ; previous to which, 
we used to go to The Friend's mills in Jerusalem. The first corn carried to 
mill from Palmyra, was by Noah Porter. He went to Jerusalem with an ox 
team in '90, cariying corn for all the settlers, taking ten days in going and 
returning. His return to the settlement was hailed with great joy, for pound- 
ing corn was very hard work. Our coffee was made of burnt corn ; our tea, 
of hemlock and other bark ; and for chocolate, dried evans root was frequent- 
ly used. 



David White died in early years — the first death and funeral in 
Palmyra. His sons were, the late Gen. David White, of Sylvania, 
Michigan ; Orrin White, a resident of Ann Arbor, Michigan ; and 
Drs. James and William White, who reside at Black Rock; a 
daughter married Col. Otis Turner, of Niagara Falls. Bennett 
Bates is still living at Ridgeway, Orleans county ; is the fathei 
of Lyman Bates, of Ridgeway, and Orlando Bates, of Jeddo. 
Noah Porter died in early years ; he was the father of Mrs. Sey- 
mour Scovell, of Lewiston, and John Porter, Esq., of Youngstown. 



382 PHELPS AKD GOEHAm's PUKCHASE. 

Jacob Gannett was an early settler, and founder of the mills near 
Macedon Locks. 

The Durfee family, who have been named, were from Tiverton, 
Rhode Island. In the summer of 1790, Gideon and Edward came 
first to Farmington, and Gideon returning in the fall, represented 
the country so favorably, that the whole family resolved upon emi- 
gration. Gideon, with Isacc Springer, came back in the winter of 
'90, '91, with an ox sled, consuming 17i days in the journey. 
Gideon purchased of John Swift his choice of 1600 acres. He 
located it on what was long known as " Durfee Street," a short dis- 
tance below Palmyra, securing a large amount of the flats on the 
Ganargwa. Being soon re-joined by his brother Edward, the 
brothers and Springer built a cabin, and clearing six acres, and 
without the use of a plough, planted it to corn. The brothers re- 
turned to Rhode Island, and brought out their brothers, Pardon and 
Job, with their families, coming in a batteaux, and landhig at their 
new home in the wilderness, almost destitute of food. They were re- 
joiced on their arrival to find their corn fit for roasting, a forward- 
ness they have never since known. It served them the two-fold 
purposes of food, and confidence in the soil and climate. The six 
acres yielded 50 bushels to the acre, a quantity that served their 
own wants and over-stocked the market, as there were few con- 
sumers. The remainder of the large family came out in the winter 
of '91, '2. They had a large crop, some of which was marketed 
at Schenectady, probably the first that ever reached that market 
from as far west as Palmyra. Otherwise prosperous, sickness soon 
laid a heavy hand upon the large household, 17 out of 22 being 
prostrated at one time with fevers. Their first bread was made 
from pounded corn ; their first grinding was procured at Wilder's 
mill, and occasionally at The Friend's mill, Jerusalem. 

The descendants of the Pioneer and Patriarch, Gideon Durfee, 
were 1 1 sons and daughters, 96 grand-children, and the whole num- 
ber are now over 200. The daughters became the wives of the 
Pioneers, Welcome Herendeen, of Farmington, Weaver Osborne, 
Humphrey Sherman and William Wilcox, of Palmyra. The only 
surviving son, is Stephen Durfee, of Palmyra, aged 75 years ; and 
the only surviving daughter, is Ruth Wilcox, aged 76 years. 

Elias Durfee and Mrs. Thomas Lakey, of Marion, Elihu Durfee, 
of Williamson, V/illiam, Isaac, Lemuel, Bailey Durfee and Mrs. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 383 

Brown, of Palmyra, Mrs. Wicks, of Ogden, Mrs. Edward S. Town- 
send, late of Palmyra, Charles Durfee, of New York, Philo Durfee, 
of Buffalo, Sidney Durfee, of Chicago, Allen, Barton and Nathaniel 
Durfee, of Michigan, are among the descendants. 



REMINISCENCES OF STEPHEN DURFEE 



There was general prosperity in the early settlement; all were friendly; 
mutual dependence made us so ; and struggling with the hardships of pioneer 
life, there was a fellow feehng, a sympathy for each other's misfortunes, but 
little of which exists now. The first curse that came upon us was whiskey 
distilleries, when the new settlers would take their corn and rye, and get them 
converted to what was the cause in many instances, of theh ruin, and that of 
many of their sons. There was not only habitual, every day chinking, but 
much intoxication. I saw so much of the evils of intoxication, that I refrain- 
ed entirely, and was almost alone in it. I think the first temperance move- 
ment, practical one, in all this region, was made by me when I raised my 
house in 1811. When I invited my neighbors to the raising, I gave out that 
no hquor would be provided ; and although it was a new experiment, I had 
no ditfieulty in raismg my house. Strict temperance was not then a disci- 
pline with the society of Friends to which I belonged, but afterwards be- 
came so. 

In the way of markets, om- eailiest grain mostly went to the distilleries, 
and supplied the new settlers. After Zebulon Williams, the early merchant 
established his store, he commenced a barter trade, receiving for goods, gi-ain 
and cattle. Money was scarce ; those who were pretty weU off were troubled 
many times, to pay their taxes, and much property used to be sacrificed at 
public sale. Williams was the first cash purchaser for wheat, but the prices 
were fluctuating; rimning down sometimes to 37^ cents. One of my neigh- 
bors once sold his wheat in Rochester, for twenty-five cents. 

In early yeai's we could hardly beheve that settlement would go much be- 
yond the Genesee River, during our life time. We thought we were quite 
far enough to the west ; as far removed from markets as it would answer to 
venture ; and we that had seen the hardest features of pioneer life, were surprised 
to see or hear of men attacking the dark heavy forests of the Holland Purchase. 

Our fii-st commerce was the navigation of the Ganai'gwa creek ; then came 
the '■' big wagons," and then the Erie Canal, that gave us fair, steady prices 
for produce, raised the value of lands, and brought on a new era of enterprise 
and prosperity. 

The Indians, were hunting and tr^apping, camping in our neighborhood, in 
aU the earliest years. The flats of the Ganargwa, and the adjoining up lands 
w|re favorite hunting gTounds. Many of the sons of the eariy settlers were 
ti-appers. It was about our only means of obtaining any money. I have re- 
alized from muskrat and coon furs, $50 in a season. I caught a beaver in a 
trap that I set for otter. Henry Lovell, a famous hunter was here in eariy 



384 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUEOHASE. 

years, he liad trapped beaver for years. He said he had often tamed the 
youMg ones. Following their instinct (or reasoning,) when it rained they 
would knaw up chairs, and other household furniture, and go through with all 
the ceremony of erecting dams. When suffered to go out, they would com- 
mence dams upon the small streams. 

All the low grounds of Palmyra were very heavily timbered ; there were 
but small patches of open flats. To look out before we got clearings, we had to 
go upon the top of " Wintergi'een Hill." Upon this hill, just before Wayne's 
victory, we contemplated the erection of a block house, fearing an outbreak 
of the Indians. But we were soon quieted by events that followed. 

I ]-emember very well the first town meeting. It was held at my father's 
house. All were well pleased with the idea that we had got along fast enough 
in the " District of Tolland " to have a town organization. John Swift was 
the Captain of our first ti'aining — his beat, all this north count)}'. The 
company parade was at his house ; he gave out a liberal supply of damaged 
powder — salutes were fired — occasionally an old revolutionary musket burst; 
as holidays were scarce then, we used to make the most of them. 

We began to have apples, from the seed, soon after 1800. Pre\"ious to 
that we had plenty of wild plums, crab apples, cranberries, &c. E\ans root 
chocolate was a common beverage ; and we used wheat and tea foi' coffee. 
Our nails cost us 25 cents per lb., "hum hum" foi- shirts, 50 cents per yard, 
a luxury that but few could indulge in. Our wool had to be carded by hand, 
in all the early years. John Swift built the first carding machine, on the 
present site of Goddard's mill. 

Nathan Harris was the principal early hunter of Palmyra ; and fishei-man 
too; in 1792 he drew a net across Ganargwa creek, near the present residence 
of Mrs. Williams, and caught eighteen large salmon. He was the father of 
Martin Harris, who was an early convert to Mormonism, and mortgaged his 
fine farm to pay for the printing of the " Gold Bible."* 



Zebulon Williams, who has been mentioned by Stephen Durfee, 
as the early merchant, died several years since, his widow survives, 
a resident at the old homestead. Piatt Williams, of California, who 
was early engaged in canal transportations at Albany, and Richard, 



* The late Mr.s Eden Foster, of Batavia, wliose fii'st husband was Moody Stone, of 
Palmyra, was an inmate of the family of Dr. Town. She gave the author a graphic 
description of a husking frolic in '96, at the house of Nathan Harris: — "We had a 
pot pie baked in a live pail kettle, composed of 13 fowls, as many squirrels, and due 
proportions of beef, mutton and venison ; baked meats, beans aud huge pumpkin pies. 
Hunting stories, singing, dancing on a split basswood floor, snap aud catch 'em, jump- 
ing the bi'oom sticlc, and hunt the squm'el, followed the feast. All joined in tlie rustic 
sports, there was no aristocracy in those days." " In Canaudaigna " continued the old 
lady, "the dances were more fashionable, but tliere was no aristocracy tliere; though 
a hired girl, in families of Gen. Taylor, and Abner Baolmv, I used to attend the frolRs 
and dance with Peter B. and Augustus Porter, Thd^s Morris, Samuel aud Judah 
Colt, Dr. Atwater, and many others of distinction." The old lady was even eloquent 
when reminiscences of the past, one after another, would flash upon her memory. 



PHELPS AND GORHAl\r's PURCHASE. 385 

Homer and Zebulon Williams, are his sons ; Mrs. Hiram P. Thayer, 
of Buffalo, is his daughter. 

Stephen Phelps was the early landlord in the village ; afterwards 
the surrogate of Ontario county. The site he occupied, is now that 
of Nottingham's Eagle Tavern. He emigrated to Illinois in 1820. 
Enoch Lilley was another early landlord ; his wife was the daughter 
©f the Rev. Eleazor Fairbanks. Preceding either, however, was 
Dr. Azel Ensworth, who was a brq^her-in-law of William Rodgers, 
and had come into the country in "92, and first settled in liis imme- 
diate neighborhood. After keeping a public house in early years, 
in Palmyra, in the early start of Rochester, he was the founder of 
the Eagle Tavern, and for a long period he and his son were its 
landlords. He still survives, a resident of Buffalo, with his son-in- 
law, Benjamin Campbell.* 

Silas Stoddard was from Groton, Conn. ; had been at sea, in the 
merchant service, emigrated to Palmyra in 1801, landing first at 
Sodus. He died in July last, at the age of 91 years ; his intellect 
and physical constitution but little impaired previous to his last ill- 
ness. Col. James Stoddard, known of late years as an intelligent 
horticulturist, is his son ; now a resident of Palmyra, aged 66 years. 
He served an apprenticeship with Col. Samuel Green, of the New 
London' Gazette, and emigrated to Palmyra with his father. From 
him the author obtained many early reminiscences. In 1804, he 
was in the employment of Major Samuel Colt, w^ho had commenced 
merchandizing in Palmyra, and had charge of two Durham boats, 
which Major Colt owned at Palmyra. Loading them with flour 
and pork, he went down the Ganargwa creek to Lyons, and from 
thence to Schenectady. Among his companions, were Gilbert 
Howell, Cooper Culver, John Phelps, and Wm. Clark. The party 
were one month going and one month returning ; havmg merchan- 
dise for their return freight. About the time of the building of 
these boats, says Col. Stoddard, land transportation looked discour- 
aging ; the merchants of Geneva, Canandaigua, Palmyra, Ithica, in 
fact all who did not depend on the Susquehannah as an avenue to 
market, held a consultation, and concluded that business must be 
done via the Rivers, Oneida Lake, and the Mohawk ; and to en- 



* At the Pioneer Festival in ilnchester, in 1850, he was present, and the medal was 
awarded to him as being the earhest Pioneer present. 



386 PHELPS AlTD GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

courage them, stone locks had been built, at Rome and Little Falls. 
Many boats were built ; for a few years business was brisk, but it 
proved too tedious and expensive ; too dependant upon high and 
low water. Even land transportation, over bad roads, successfully 
competed with it. 

" The first trip we made," says Col. Stoddard, " in passing through 
Oneida Lake, we stopped at Vanderkemp's settlement, now Con- 
stantia. Mr. Vanderkemp hat^ erected an expensive dam, a large 
*aw mill and grist mill, and there were eight or ten framed and 
some log dwellings ; but one single family however, all the rest hav- 
ing been driven off by sickness.* When I landed with my father's 
family at Sodus, Mr. Williamson's settlement had much declined, 
and there were many deserted tenements between Sodus and Pal- 
myra ; sickness having driven off the occupants. I have known 
periods when' a majority of all the inhabitants of the Ganargwa 
valley were prostrated by fevers." 

Henry Jessup was the early tanner in Palmyra, and still survives, 
his sons being his successors in business. His partner for many 
years was George Palmer, of Buffalo. • 

William Rogers came in with his brothers, James and Thomas, 
in 1792, a widower, and his brother James dying in early years, he 
married his widow. The family were from Rhode Island. William 
was one of the early Judges of Ontario, one of its representatives 
in the Legislature, and a magistrate ; prominently identified with 
the history of Palmyra and Ontario county. He died in 1836, aged 82 
years. ]Major William Rogers, so favorably known to the travel- 
ling public in the early years of canal navigation, as a packet master, 
the father-in-law of Pomeroy Tucker, editor of the Wayne Sen- 
tinel, is a surviving son. He is now the occupant of a fine farm 
near Pultneyville ; as stirring and energetic as when he used to 
sing out : — " Hurra, is the lock ready ? " — or beat up the quarters 
of the sleepy drivers in dark and rainy nights. A daughter of his 
was the wife of Noah Porter. Gen. Thomas Rodgers, and Denni- 
son Rodgers of Palmyra, are surviving sons of James Rodgers. 
Thomas Rodgers preceded his brother, and assisted in the survey 
of the town ; of his family, only hi-s son David remains in Palmyra. 

* The founder of this settleraert \ras the father of John J. Vanderkemp, of PMa- 
delphia, the general agent of the Holland Co. He soon abandoned the enterpiiBe, and 
removed to Oldenbameveldt," [Trenton,] Oneida co. 



PHELPS AKD GORHAm's PURCHASE. 387 

The first winter after Judge Rodgers came in, the neighborhood 
was without salt. Learning that some had been brought up as far 
as Lyons, with a hired man, and an ox team, he cut his own sled 
path, and after three days hard labor, returned with his salt. 

Zackariah Blackman was the early blacksmith. John Hurlburt, 
a brother of Judge Hurlburt," who was the Pioneer of Arkport, on 
the Canisteo, became a resident of Palmyra in 1795. His widow 
is now living at the age of 81 year.s. He set up a distillery as ear- 
ly as '96. He died in 1813. * William Jackway, who came in 
with Gen. Swift, died in 1849, aged 91 years. John Russell, who 
was one of the front rank of Pioneers, upon whose original farm 
a portion of the village has grown up, removed to Henrietta in 1821, 
where he died but a few years since, from the effects of the kick of 
a horse. John Russell was the step-father of Augustus Southworth, 
of HoUey ; Mrs. Russel now resides in Rochester. 

Reuben Town was the earliest settled Physician in Palmyra, 
He removed to Batavia in early years. He was followed by Dr. 
Gain Robinson, as early as 1800. Dr. Robinson was from Cum- 
%iington, Massachusetts. He married the daughter of Col. John 
Bradish, the father of Gov. Bradish, who was one of the early set- 
tlers of Palmyra. He continued in practice until his death, in 1830, 
enjoying a large share of professional eminence, and highly esteem- 
ed in the wide circle of his practice. There have gone out from 
under his instruction a large number who hare conferred credit up- 
on their early mentor ; among them may be named : — His nephew, 
Dr. Alexander Mclntyre, who for many years practiced with him, 
and is now his local successor ; Drs. James and William White ;^ 
Dr. West, of Cayuga county ; Dr. Isaac Smith, of Lockport, 
(deceased;) Dr. Whippo, (now an engineer;) Dr. Durfee Chase, 
of Palmyra; Dr. Gregory of Michigan. The surviving sons of 
Dr. Robinson, are : — Clark, Darwin, and RoUin, of' Buffalo.* 
Daughters : — Mrs. Philip Grandin, of New York ; her husband 
was an early merchant in Palmyra ; and Mrs. Judge Tiffany, of 
Adrian, Michigan ; Mrs. Hiram Niles, of Buffalo ; and Mrs. Geo. 
Pomeroy. f 

' * A toast of the early Pioneer, in one of the early years, at a Fourth of July cele- 
bration, is worthy of preservation. The wish has been fully realized: — "May we 
cultivate the vine and sheaf in this new world, and furnish the old with bread." 

t Judge Tiffany is a son of the early printer at Niagara, C. W., and Canandaigua. 
Mr. Pomeroy is one of the founders of Wells & Pomeroy's Express. 



388 PHELPS AISTD GOKHAm's PUECITASE. 

The first lawyer in Palmyra, was John Comstock, who also mar- 
ried a daughter of Col. Bradish. He survives, a resident near 
Adrian, Michigan. 

In the year 1789, Joel Foster, Elias Reeves and Luke Foster, of 
Long Island, became the agents of a company that had been form- 
ed in Connecticut, New Jersey and Lbng Island, for the purpose of 
leasing lands of the Indians ; an organization similar to the Lessee 
Company of this State. Proceeding to Fort Pitt, where they were 
joined by others, they traversed the wilds of Virginia, and return- 
ing to the north, struck the Ohio river, and followed it down to the 
desirable location called Turkey Bottom, where they purchased a 
claim to a large tract, and left Luke Foster to keep possession for 
the winter, Joel Foster and Elias Reeves returning to take on a 
colony of settlers in the spring. An act of Congress interfering 
with their title or possession, frustrated the enterprise. " Turkey 
Bottom," in process of time, became Cincinnati, the queen city of 
the west. 

Thus disappointed, and Indian wars growing mors threatening at 
the west, the Long Island adventurers turned their attention to the 
Genesee country. Elias Reeves, Abraham Foster, William Hop- 
kins, Luther Sandford and Joel Foster, in the summer of 1791, 
bought 5,500 acres on the Ganargwa Creek, in East Palmyra ; 
spotting a tree and planting some apple seeds, an earnest of their 
intended occupancy. In April, 1792, they built a sail boat, launched 
it in Heady Creek, embarked with their families, towing down the 
stream to South Bay, and sailing up to New York, and from thence 
,to Albany, where they took their boat out of water, transported it 
qp. wheels to Schenectady, launched it in the Mohawk, and from 
gthence came to Lyons ; and obtaining a smal|pr boat, ascended the 
Ganargwa Creek to their new wilderness home. The journey con- 
sumed 28 days. Most of those named, became prominent founders 
of settlement, and have left numerous descendants. 

Note. — For the facts connected -with the pioneer enterprise of tliis Long Island 
colony, the'aiithor is indebted to a sermon delivered at Palmyra on Thanksgiving day, 
1846, by the E-^v. Nathaniel W. Fisher, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, who de- 
rived his information from Mr. Henry J. Foster, a descendant of one of the Pioneers^ 
Mr. Fisher was one of the victims of' the cholera at Sandusky, in the summer of 1848. 
The author makes an extract from the sermon, in which the Rev. gentleman bestows 
no more than a deserved eulogy upon the Pioneer motliers, who accompanied this ex- 
pedition : — " Especially do v^e admu-e the character -of those noble women, whose 
sacrifices, prayers and labors, aided in laying the foundations of society and those 



PHELPS AND GORILOl's PUKCHASE. 389 

It is Stated by the Rev. Mr. Fisher, that a Presbyterian church 
was organized in 1793, i-n Palmyra. If this is so, it was the first or- 
ganized church west of Seneca Lake. Mrs. Tice, a daughter of John 
Hurlburt, says their first religious meetings were conversational or 
social meetings, not sectarian, c|?nerally held at the house of John 
Swift. It is recorded that the Presbyterian church in Palmyra was 
organized in Sept., 1797«; the trustees elected : — Jacob Gannett, 
Stephen Reeves, David Warner, Jedediah Foster, Jonah Howell! 
The first settled minister was the Rev. Eleazor Fairbanks, who was 
succeeded by the Rev. Benjamin Bell. 

Jonah Howell erected the first mill, a mile east of the village, on 
the Vienna road ; this was followed by one erected by Gen. Swift, 
on the site occupied by Goddard's mill. 

The first death in Palmyra was that of David White ; the first 
wedding was that of William Wilcox and Ruth Durfee ; the first 
male child born in town, was Asa R. Swift, a son of John Swift; 
the first female, the daughter of David Wilcox, who became the wife 
of Alva Hendee. 



WILLIAM HOWE CUTLER, 



His father, John Cuyler, of Greenbush, had been (at what period 
the author is unable to state,) a General in the British service. 
He was a resident of Greenbush, opposite Albany, an attorney at 
law. It is presumed, that when Mr. Williamson arrived in this 
country, upon his agency, he found in him an old acquaintance, as 
he is one of the first with whom he held correspondence, and he 
was one of his first legal advisers. As early as 1793, his son, Rich- 
ard, was in the employment of Mr. Williamson, as was his son Wm. 
Howe Cuyler, several years previous to 1 800. 

Soon after 1800, Wm. Howe Cuyler became a resident of Pal- 
myra, having become the local agent of Mr. Williamson, for the 

blessed institutions which are now tlie support and oniament of community. The 
legends of tliose times are adorned witli the names of females that should descend to 
posterity, and Ije embalmed in their most grateful recollections. We often wonder if 
the mantle of those yenerated matrons have fallen upon the wives of the present day • 
with all the improvements in modern education, are they better quahfied to make 
happy homes ? Have they larger hearts, better minds, purer patriotism, wai-mer zeal 
jn every good work ?" ' 



390 PHELPS AN^D GORIIAm's PUECHASE. 

sale of lands in the north-east portion of what is now Wayne 

county. Sawyer, the brother-in-law of John Swift, who 

had an interest with him in the original purchase of the town, wish- 
ing to return to Georgia, where he had formerly resided, sold his 
property to Major Cuyler, in 1805. Included in this sale, was the 
old Cuyler farm, uport which a considerable portion of the village 
of Palmyra has grown up. • 

Upon the breaking out of the war of 1812, Major Cuyler was early 
upon the frontier, as the aid of General Swift.* Stationed at 
Buffalo, he was the active co-operator with Lieut. Elliott, in the 
preparations for the gallant exploit of capturing the British vessels, 
from under the walls of Fort Erie, on the 8th of October, 1812. 
In anticipation that the expedition would return with wounded men, 
he had been engaged through the night in making preparations for 
their reception. Anxious for the fate of men who had engaged in 
so hazardous an enterprise, before day light in the morning, he had 
rode down upon the beach, towards Black Rock, when a chance 
grape shot, from a British battery, at Fort Erie, passed through his 
body, breaking the spine, and killing him instantly. f It was the first 
sacrifice of the war, on the Niagara frontier ; the first and one of 
the dearest of the many sacrifices of western New York, in all that 
contest. And it may also be added, that Gen. Scott being near 
him, it was his first introduction to the terrible realities of war, of 
which he was destined to see so much through a long and brilliant 
military career.J After the war, his remains were removed to 
Palmyra, and are now entombed in the rural cemetery, which the 
citizens of that village, with much of good taste and public spirit, 
have within a few years added to their flourishing village. 

In civil life. Major Cuyler was a man of much energy and enter- 



* The author has an early evidence of his military spirit and ambition. When some 
of the earliest military organizations were going on in Steuben, he was a resilient at 
Bath, a clerk of Mr. Williamson. Mr. Williamson being in Albany, the young aspirant 
to miUtary distinction, wrote to him : — " You are the only field officer in the Regi- 
ment, and on you, of course, will devolve the duty of making proper recommendations. 
I shall only observe that I have been a milit;uy man for about twelve years past, and 
have never rose above the halberd, and that I, now look for promotion. I should like 
to bavethe office Mr. Porter formerly held — that of Brigade Major and Inspector — as 
the duty of Adjutant General in the several brigades, now devolve on that officer." 

t The shot is now in possession of his sister, Mrs. Smith, of Auburn. 

t He had just been promoted to the rank of Lieut. Colonel, and had aiTived at Black 
Rock, in command of two companies of U. S. ArtUlcr}'. 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAjM's PUECHASE. 391 

prise ; he was one of the founders of the Ontario Woolen Manu- 
facturing Company.* He married the daughter of Samuel Shekell, 
of Manchester, who still survives, a resident of Brooklyn, with her 
daughter by a second marriage. Major Cuyler left two sons, George 
W. and William Howe Cuyler ; the former a banker, and the lat- 
ter a merchant, in Palmyra. 



LYONS. 



The early advent of the Stansell's and Featherly, the building of 
mills, the primitive commencement generally, at Lyons, have been 
noticed in connection with Mr. Williamson. 

James Otto came in 1796, was employed in the erection of the 
mills, and in '98, marrying the daughter of Capt. Dunn who settled 
where the Mead's now reside on the Geneva road, he moved upon 
his farm south of Lyons village, where he now resides, in his 81st 
year. He has been the father of eight sons and eight daughters, 
thirteen of whom are now living in Lyons and the western states. 

The old gentleman says it was so sickly about the village of Lyons 
in early years that many who attempted to settle there got discour- 
aged and left. Dr. Prescott of Phelps, was the first physcian. Dr. 
Willis settled where the village of Lyons now is, but getting sick 
himself, and sick of the country, returned to Vermont. In the 
winter of '99 and 1800, there was an unusal deep snow ; there came 
a rain making a crust, and the wolves destroyed the deer to such an 
extent that their carcasses were strewn over the woods tainting the 
whole atmosphere. 

Judge Evert Van Wickle, who has been mentioned in connec- 
tion with early operations in Allegany, came to Lyons soon after 
Mr. Williamson had commenced improvements there, and was in 
his employ as a surveyor.f 

Judge Daniel Dorsey from Frederick county, Maryland, came 

* He introduced the first Merino buck into western New York, purchasing it of one 
. of the Livingstons, in Albany, paying $900. 

t In one of Mr. Williamson's letters, in 1798, ho says : — "A promising settlement, 
composed of people from Jersey and Maiylaud, is begun here this June ; a Mr. Van 
Wickle from the Jerseys, moved in along with forty persons." 



392 PHELPS Am) gorham's purchase. 

to L3'ons m 1801, with his family. Two years previous he had ex- 
plored the country and purchased of Mr. Williamson nearly one 
thousand acres, mostly on the east side of the outlet, immediately 
adjoining the village of Lyons, on either side of the Lyons and 
Geneva Plank Road. It included the farm that had been commen- 
ced by Mr. Cameron, as agent for Mr. Wiliamson, and the improve- 
ments; had been reserved in anticipation of what would grow up 
at the confluence of the streams — mostly the head of navigation; 
but was sold to Judge Dorsey as an inducement to emigration. 
He had a large family — ten children — and a considerable number 
of slaves, that were soon liberated, principally for the reason that 
in that case as well as in all other similar experiments that were tried 
in this region, slave labor was unprofitable. 

The strong handed emigrant immediately commenced clearing 
and improving his fine possessions. Soon after 1800 he commen- 
ced merchandizing, bringing his goods from Baltimore. A large 
proportion of his early trade was with the Indians, who were en- 
camped along the banks of the outlet and at Sodus. There used to 
be as many as thirty Indian huts along where William street, of 
Lyons village, crosses the canal. 

Thomas Dorsey, a son of the early Pioneer, now occupies a por- 
tion of the old homestead. The author transcribes from memoran- 
dvms of a conversation had ^vith him, some early reminiscences of 
that locality : — 

Durham boats used to arrive frequently from Schenectady with 
emigrants and goods, and with salt from Salt Point. It was only 
in freshets that they could go as high up as Palmyra and Manches- 
ter. Salmon were very plenty in the streams ; at the forks I have 
known fifteen and twenty taken with one spear in a night ; weigh- 
ing from fifteen to twenty pounds. It was not uncommon to see 
herds of deer grazing on the flats. 

When the Dorsey family arrived at Lyons, there was settled in 
village and immediate vicinity, other than those already named : — 
John Biggs, who kept a tavern on the site now occupied by Bar- 
ton's tavern, in a log house. He was the Pioneer landlord, and is 
yet living near the village. Richard Jones, a saddler, had a shop 
on what is now Broad street, in a log building. He died in 1832. 
George Carr, a mason by trade, lived on Broad street in a log house. 
William Gibbs lived a little south of the village, on the farm now 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAM^S PURCIIASE. 393 

owned by Harvey Geer. John Perrine lived on the Canandaigua 
outlet one mile from the village. He was an early magistrate and 
Supervisor of the town; removed to Michigan, where he died in 
1830. The progress of the village was slow in all the early years, 
and in fact until the location and construction of the Erie Canal. 
In 1818 there was but a small cluster of buildings ; two taverns, one 
kept by Ezekiel Price, and another by Elias Hull ; the store of 
Leach & Demmon ; a few dwellings ; a k\v mechanic shops ; 
a Methodist and Presbyterian church, John Cole, the father of 
Joseph Cole, was the first local minister, and organized the first 
Methodist society. He died in 1810. The first religious meetings 
were attended by Judge Dorsey, who was a member of the JMeth- 
odist church, and occasionally an exhorter. 

The village of Lyons had a rapid start after the completion of 
the canal; many enterprising men were attracted there ; substantial 
business establishments were started one after another ; private 
residences, in beauty of location, and in all their appointments vie- 
ing with those of any of its neighboring villages and cities in West- 
ern New Y^'k, were founded one after another ; new streets were 
laid out with the accompaniments of fine walks and long lines of 
shade trees ; substantial and neat public edifices were erected ; 
until now, in 1851, there are few spots in all this wide region, hold- 
ing out more inducements, either for residence, or business pur- 
suits. The tourist, in western New York, who does not wander 
from the rail road route, misses at least two beautiful and flourishing 
villages — Palmyra and Lyons. But things as they were, not as 
they now are, are the subjects in hand. 

Daniel Dorsey died in 1823, at the age of 65 years. His survi- 
ving children are : — Upton Dorsey, Esq., of Geneva ; Thomas E. 
Dorsey, residing on the old homestead at Lyons ; Nelson R. Dorsey^ 
residing in Calhoun county, Michigan; Mrs. Cyrus Chapin, of Gen- 
eva ; Mrs. Lawrence Riley, in Ohio ; Mrs. Thomas Rook, of Lyons, 
Mrs. Wm. Hudson, of Geneva ; Mrs. Michael Miller, of Calhoun 
CO., Michigan ; Mrs. Milton Barney, of Chicago ; and two sons 
have diej^ after arriving at adult age ; eleven in all. The early 
Pioneer had held a Captain's commission in the Maryland line during 
the Revolution, and after his advent to this region, was an early 
Judge of the courts of Ontario. 
25 



394 PHELPS AOT) gorham's puechase. 

SODUS. 



After the advent of Mr. Williamson in that region, the erection 
of his mills, large tavern house, wharf and store house — all the im- 
provements under his auspices — there followed long years of de- 
cline ; but an occasional hardy adventurer dropping into the wil- 
<iei*ness, along on the Lyons and Palmyra roads, encountering dis- 
ease and privation — some of them wrestling with them until dis- 
couraged, leaving their log cabins untenanted — a forbidding indi- 
cation to new adventurers. All that Mr. Williamson had done was 
premature. A fine public house, good mills, a pleasure boat upon 
the beautiful Bay, would have been well conceived enterprises in a 
settled country, but sadly out of place in a wilderness, with here 
and there, miles apart, in small openings of the forest, a Pioneer 
settler, half resolving to leave the country, and give up his enter- 
prise as a bad job. Of those that were connected with the im- 
provements, but few remained long after they were completed. 

In 1801, Ami Elsworthcame from East Windsor, Conn., and set- 
tled on the road leading from the Ridge to the village Mr. William- 
son had founded upon the Lake and Bay. There was then on the 
road leading to Palmyra, no settler nearer to where he located than 
Daniel Russell, 9 miles distant. At the Point, (village) Moses Sill 
was in the tavern house ; and there were two or three families be- 
side, most of whom lived by fishing and hunting. On the Lake 
shore, seven miles above the Point, was a solitary settler by the 
name of Amos Richards. * Elijah Brown was an early, but not a 
permanent settler on the Lake shore, four miles above the Point, f 

* Connected with him or his family, is a tale of pioneer life, well worthy of record. 
Mr. Piichards had been in but a few years, and made but a little opening in the forest, 
when he died, leaving a wife, and a daughter twenty years old ; both uncommonly en- 
dowed with health and strength. In their solitaiy home, far away from neighbors, 
the mother and daughter took the laboring oars in out of door work, cho^iped and 
cleared land, added a'comfortable log barn upon their premises, planted an orchard, 
harrowed, ploughed, sowed, reaped and harvested ; dispensing entirely with the labor 
of men. In winters, they had their own roads to make to the settlements, their stock 
to fodder and brouse ; — in fact, women as they were, they contended successfully with 
j'.U the endurances of pioneer life, and in the end, with pretty good success. There 
was an entire new feature in the old lady's domestic economy : — She trained a ^^p"^ 
to can-y burdens, and especially her grain to mill, upon her back. Mrs. Richards died 
in 1849, aged 93 years. The daughter is the wife of Jeduthan Moffatt., 

t He was a Pioneer upon the Holland Purchase, at the mouth of Oak Orchard 
Creek, as early as 1804. In 1805 or '6, he came down the Lake from his now lo.m- 
tion to mill at iSodus, in a skiff. Returning, he was taken sick, and on going on shore, 



PHELPS AND GOKIIAm's PURCHASE. 895 

Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth still survive, at an advanced age. They 
have fifty living descendants in the town of Sodus. 

The old gentleman says that his neighborhood, in an early day, 
was more than usually the haunt of deer, bears and wolves; wild 
ducks were abundant in the Bay, and some seasons of the years, 
pigeons were so plenty, that it was difficult to protect the crops 
from their depredations. At one period, they had their roosts on 
the Lake shore, their nests occupying the trees upon hundreds of 
acres. Some trees would have sixty and seventy nests upon them. 
The backwoods settlers carried away cart loads of the young 
squabs. On another occasion, an unusual quantity of beach nuts 
and mild weather, attracted myriads of them to the neighborhood ; 
the weather suddenly changing to severe cold, the woods were 
strewed with those that had been frozen to death. 

Elijah Gibbs was the first settled physician in the neighborhood. 
He died in 1829. Several of his sons are masters of vessels upon 
the Lake. EJisha Matthews was an early physician ; a son of his 
resides in Rochester. 

Mr. Ellsworth was sick for five of the first years after settling at 
Sodus ; his then young wife, transferred to the wilderness from a 
comfortable New England home, had her husband and young chil- 
dren to take care of, and much of the out door labor to perform. 
A payment upon their land became due : their dependence to meet 
it was a sum due them in Connecticut ; Mrs. E. made the long 
journey to Windsor upon horseback, and obtained it. The history 
of their pioneer years has the harshest features of backwood's life ; 
l^ut with them, as with others, the scene has changed ; the dense 
forests have i\ielted away ; in the midst of their descendants, sur- 
rounded by fruitful fields, they are spending the evening of their 
days, and calmly awaiting the close of the mission upon earth, 
they have so well performed. 



PEREGRINE FITZHUGH. 



DG^ See William Fitzhugh, page 364. He emigrated to this re- 
gion in 1799. Residing three years at Geneva, he was engaged in 

died at Trondeqnoit. John G. Brown, of Hudson, Michigan, and Paul Brown, of Pal- 
myra, Wayne county, are his sons. Daughters became the wives of Edward Durfee, 
aaidWiUiam 'VVilcox, of Palmyra, and Gilbert Howell, of Oak Orchard, 



396 PHELPS AKD GOEIIAMS PUECHASE. 

improvino; a large purchase he had made at Sodus, until his removal 
there in 1803. But little had been done there before his advent, 
in the way of farm improvements. Mr. Williamson's fine tavern 
house loomed up on the Bay, on either hand, a few log cabins, 
most of them deserted; while the background was a thickly wood- 
ed forest, upon the beautiful swell of land between the Bay and 
the Lake ; cut up into " inner " and " outer " town lots ; the stakes 
and blazed trees of the surveyors being the only marks of improve- 
ment. 

Col. Fitzhugh came into the country strong handed ; his was the 
Pioneer advent of the " Marylanders," and was a marked event. 
He came over Mr. Williamson's Northumberland road, with a for- 
midable cavalcade; large Pennsylvania wagons, drawn by 27 
horses ; his family, including slaves, consisting of over forty per- 
sons. The cavalcade w^as five w'eeks in making the passage, the 
whole camping in the woods two nights on the way. 

The enterprising adventurer from the shores of the Chesepeake 
Bay,._chose for his home one of the finest regions of the Genesee 
countr^^s time and improvements are now rapidly demonstrating, 
but one beset with many early difficulties and hindrances — dis- 
ease, isolation, in reference to the directions that business and the 
progress of improvement took ; destined to slow settlement, and 
long untoward years. He died in the midst of his enterprises, in 
1810. The owner, by inheritance, of slaves, he introduced them 
into a region unfitted for slave labor, and in his case, as well as with 
all others who made the experiment, it was a failure. He had 
made most of them free before his death. , 

Mrs. Fitzhugh, who was the daughter of Samuel Lloyd Chew, of ^ 
Ann Arundel, Md., still survives, a resident at the old homestead, at 
the advanced age of 84 years. She has lived to see her descend- 
ants of the fifth generation. The surviving sons of Col. Peregrine 
Fitzhu>'h, are : — Samuel Fitzhugh, who has been a cler* in the 



]S^OTE — Au experiment of local coloiiiziition, or separate settlement of free blacks, 
commence'! in an early clay at Sodus. The niannimitted slaves of most of the 
]\Iarvlandcl-s — many of them those of Mr. Fitzhugh — were allowed to go 
iipoii the Pnltenev" lands, near the Bay, the ten, fifteen, and, twenty acre 
h'l* that had been"" laid out by Mr. Williams(m upon his towwn plat. Ihey 
innnbered at one time, about "80 in all. The settlement began to dispeise after a 
few years; they proved illv adapted for making themselves a home upon new lands; 
those that remained were idle and unthrifty, and their locality is now a sad specuucu 
of the self reliance, or independent existence, of their race. 



PHELPS Am) GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 397 

General Post Office, at Washington, for nearly thirty years ; and 
Bennett C. Fitzhugh, a resident at Sodus Point. Daughters be- 
came the wives of William Pulteney Dana,* whose mother was a 
niece of Sir William Pulteney; of William Haylartz, of Sodus ; 
of William Edwards, of Sodus ; an unmarried daughter resides at 
the old homestead. 



WILLIAM NIXON LOOMIS. 



He was a native of New Jersey. After a collegiate education, 
he studied medicine, attended the lectures of Dr. Rush, at Philadel- 
phia. His ambition as a student, is indicated by the fact, that he 
took copious notes of the whole course of lectures of that eminent 
man, which fill several quarto volumes, and are the only report ex- 
tant, of that course. An acquaintance thus formed, between mas- 
ter and pupil, they afterwards maintained a correspondence of 
intimacy and friendship. Commencing the practice of medicine 
in Philadelphia, he continued there until a declining health, conse- 
quent upon an attack of the yellow fever, induced hi:n to seek a 
change of climate. 

He came on a tour of exploration to the Genesee country soon after 
1800. In a trip by water, with some friends, they were overtaken 
by a storm, off the mouth of the Genesee river. The party landed, 
and yent up to view the Falls. Upon the present site of Roches- 
ter, they came to a solitary log cabin, knocked, and were bid 
to come in. Upon entering, they found that in the absence of 
fie family, a parrot had been the hospitable representative. The 
#imily returned soon, however, and gave them a supper of potatoes 
and milk ; the best that the site of a now city of 40,000 inhabit- 
ants, then afforded. Deciding upon making Sodus Point his home, 
he made 05nsiderable investments in lands there, and soon removed 
his family to their new home. He resided at the Point, until the 
commencement of the war of 1812, when he removed two miles 
farther up the Lake, where he had purchased lands, and erected a 
flouring mill. His house at the Point was burned when the British 

* He came to this country soon after his relative had become a proprietor here ; his 
wife dying, he returned to England in early years. Mrs. Daniel H. Fitzhugh, of Grove- 
land is, a dantrhter of his. 



398 PUELrs AND GOEHAM'S PURCHASE. 

force made their landing there. To the flouring mill, in his new 
locality, he added a saw mill, an iron forge, and several other branch- 
es of business; besides improving the land, dividing it into farms, 
and building several houses for tenants. The little settlement was 
called " Maxwell." Leaving Philadelphia with the design of aban- 
doning his profession, his practice was only 'such as the exigencies 
of the new region demanded, and mostly gratuitous. He bestowed 
much of his time and talents in the cause of internal improvements. 
If not the projector, he early and zealously espoused the opening 
of a communication between Lake Ontario and the Erie Canal, by 
means of a branch canal, terminating at Sodus Bay.* 

To indefatigable industry and perseverance, he added extraordi- 
nary business talents ; and to a vigorous intellect he added a thor- 
ough education, cultivated literary tastes and pursuits, in hours of 
relaxation from the sterner duties of life, which made him an agree- 
able and instructive companion. He died in 1833, at the age of 58 
years. An inscription upon his tomb stone, in the rural cemetery, 
at Sodus village, pays the following tribute to his memory ; — " He 
was one of the Pioneer Border settlers. His enterprising, vigor- 
ous, and active mind, aided esssentially in the improvements of this 
country, and commanded for him universal esteem." 

The first wife of Dr. Lummis died in early years. His second 
wife was a daughter of Captain John Maxwell, and the niece of 
General William Maxwell, both of whom are honorably mentioned 
in Revolutionary annals. The surviving sons of Dr. Lummis, 
are : — Benjamin Rush Lummis, residing on the east side of Sodus 
Bay ; William M. and Dayton Lummis, merchants, New York. 
An only surviving daughter is Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet, the wife of Drg 
William H. Ellet, Professor of Chemistry in Columbia College, N^ 
York ; The amiable and gifted authoress of " The Women of the 
American Revolution," and " Domestic History of the American 
Revolution." ^ 

Dr. Thomas G. Lawson, an Englishman, leaving home on ac- 
count of some domestic difficulties, came to Sodus Point, in early 

* A project revived in later years, ]iiincipally under the auspices of another public 
spirited individual — Gen. Wm. H.Adams — vvith slow and untoward progress at first ; 
but now, with tlie aid of recent legislation, likely to be consummated. 

Note •— Mrs. Ellet is now about 38 years of age. Her first published literary effort 
■was written at the age of thirteen ; an "Ode" \viitten on the occasion of La Fayetto's 
Visit at Geneva where she was attending school. 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 399 

years, purchasing a large number of Mr. Williamson's "out lots," a 
mile from the Point, fixing his residence there. Possessed of consid- 
erable wealth, he practiced his profession only occasionally, spending 
his money freely in improvements of his possessions. He returned 
to England, where he died in 1833. 

Elder Seb^ Norton was the the pioneer clergyman, at Sodus, set- 
tling there as early as 1805. After four years' service in the 
Revolution, which included a participation in the battles of Mon- 
mouth and Saratoga, he united with the Baptist church, and soon took 
upon himself the office of a minister, with a limited education, but 
with a native strength of mind, and a devotion to his profession, 
which insured a long career of usefulness. He was the founder 
of the first meeting house in the township. He died in 1835, in 
the 70th year of his age. 

In reference to the slow growth of Sodus, the early fluctuations of its 
population, Judge Byram Green remarks : — "A large portion of the 
early settlers about the Bay, were but transient residents, fishermen 
and hunters. They would come to the Bay, invited by the abun- 
dance of deer in the forest, wild ducks in the Bay, and fish in the 
Bay and Lake, and erect their huts on the Islands in the Bay, or the 
main land. There they would hunt and fish for a season, some a 
few years, and leave the place. Soon another set would come, and 
occupy the vacant and common ground. And thus a floating pop- 
ulation was coming and going, like the rolling waves upon the Lake, 
until more enterprising men purchased and occupied the ground, 
subdued the forest, and cultivated the soil." 



RIDGE ROAD AND SODUS BAT- 



Secluded, in referenc to the main thoroughfares, the northern portions of 
Monroe and Wayne counties care less known than most of the Grenesee coun- 
try. Sodus Bay, especially, a marked spot in the topography of the Genesee 
country, and in fact in all our Lake region, has never been seen by many, 
otherwise familial- with the whole region. These considerations will excuse a 
seeming partiality, in making them an exception to a general rule, in this his- 
tory of pioneer settlement. 

Passing Irondequoit Bay, and going east, the Ridge Road becomes as well 
defined, as uniformly elevated, as upon any portion of it between the Genesee 
and the Niagara rivers. It passes through the tovm^ of Webster, in Monroe, 



400 PHELPS AND GORHAM S PURCITASE. 

Ontario, Williamson, and Sodus, in Wayne, terminating at the head of the 
Bay, or rather losing there its regular and distinctive character. Stai-ting 
from Irondequoit, passing the fine swells of uplands and broad plains — the 
constant succession of magnificent fiirms, of the towTi of Webster, the flour- 
ishing rural village, that beai's the name of the town — there is a great uni- 
formity in nature's own highway, upon which you are traveling; its gradual 
slope in the dii-ection of Lake Ontario, and the gentle swells and rolling lands 
on the other hand — a sameness of landscape — until you arrive at Wil- 
liamson, or Poppino's corners, where the main pases roads from Palmyra to 
Pultney ville. Here the scene changes gradually, the slope and the Ridge becom- 
ing more irregular, and at the south knobs tmd sugar loaf hills become frequent, 
to add to the variety of scenery, not to form, an exce2-)tion to the every where 
desirable fai'ms, and prosperous agricultural region. No where in all this 
region of progr«iss, h;is the hand of improvement effected a more rapid 
change, or found a soil making better returns for its labor. And here it may 
be remarked, that with reference to the staple grain product, wheat, there is 
no region of country on earth, that contains in its soil more of its elements, 
than the slope from the Ridge Road to Lake Ontai'io, in its whole extent. 

Passing from Poppino's Corners to Sodus village — seven miles — on either 
hand are broad wheat fields, clear of stumps, many of them looking like vast 
onion beds ; the Ridge gently curving, and then straight for miles, with a 
regidar elevation, you ai'e gradually bearing towards the Lake, until for a con- 
siderable distance you catch glimpes of its blue waves, through vistas of the 
forest, schooners with sails spread, or perhaps a magnificent steamboat^ a 
floating palace — will cross the line of \asion. 

Sodus village has grown up on the Ridge — hardly wdthina pioneer period 
— a flourishing, brisk country village, having a pleasant niral aspect ; its site, 
where the road from Lyons to Sodus Point, crosses the Ridge. A walk, or 
ride, of four miles through a fine fanning region, of ridges and valleys, brings 
you to the Point, or the old site of Mr. Williamson's magnificently projected 
town. 

If you question his judgement, or say that his plans were premature, you 
will be obliged to pay homage to his taste ; for no where in all this i-egion is 
there a finer site for a ^ illage or a city. The bold shore of the Lake forms 
an elevated and beautiful terrace on the one hand, while thegTound gradually 
descends to the waters of the Bay upon the other. As the Point gradually 
widens out in the back groimd, it rises slowly, and is interspersed with 



JToTE. — In the years 1818, '19, the author, a youth, semnghis apprentiship in a 
no-wspaper office at Palmyra, travelled through this region each fall, as the clerk of 
;i blind newspaper carrier. It was a most unpromising region of log cabins, stinted 
ini]irovemcnts, of chills and fevers. The owls hooted tVom tops of the liemlock trees, 
wolves howled, and foxes barked in the dark forests ; the saucv liawk would be 
pei'ched upon trees in close proximity witli solitary log cabins, ready to pounce upon 
truant chickens that straycrl a few rods from the coo]>" before the door. Thirty years 
passed over, and he revisited the region in connection with this present work. What 
a change! Comfort, luxury, abundance, liad taken the place of those rugged scenes 
of pioneer life ! Recognizing a pioneer mother, tliat he used to see there in those 
primitive days, he observcid to lier : — "I used to pity you that were obUgcd to live 
here; tiow I almost pity those that cannot." 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 401 

swells of land, slopes and vallies, forming sites for residences overlooking Lake 
and Ba}'', and every way inviting. 

The Bay enters a cove of the Lake, which is protected on either hand by 
headlands, Itisabont half a mile across its neck, gradually widening out to 
the extent of four miles. Lr length from north to south, it is nearly seven 
miles. A small Island in the Lake, Ijing opposite the entrance to the Bay, a 
pier connects it with the main land, and another is extended into the Lake. 
These public improvements, added to natural advantages, renders it the finest 
harbor upon all our Lake coasts. It is said of the magnificent Bay of San 
Francisco, that " all the navies of the world might ride at anchor in it at 
one time, with safety." It may be said of Sodus Bay, that all the craft that 
will ever navigate our Lakes, would find ample room there ; good anchorage, 
and protection tVom the severest gales. Its nujstly deep, still waters might at 
times, be passed over safely in a canoe, when a tempest was tossing the -waters 
of the Lake. The scenery, especially upon the east side of the Bay, is less 
bold and rugged, but its promentories remind one of the descriptions of the 
Bay of Na})les. With an eye for the picturesque and romantic — a feehng of 
enthusiasm in reference to all this region, — Mr. Williamson wrote to a friend 
in England ; — "The town" (Sodus,) "stands on arising ground on the 
west point of the Bay, having the Lake on the north, to appearance as bound- 
less as the ocean, and the Bay to the east romantically interspersed with Islands, 
and parts of the main land stretching into it. The first view of the place, 
after passing through a timbered country from Geneva, twenty-eight miles, 
strikes the eye of the beholder, as one of the most magnificent landscapes 
human fancy can picture ; and the beauty of the scene, is not unfrequeutly 
heightened, by the appearance of large vessels navigating the Lake." 



The " District of Sodus," was erected in the primitive division 
of Ontario county into Districts, in 1789. The earliest record of a 
town meeting is in 1799. The district then embraced all of the 
present town of Sodus and Lyons. The town or district meeting 
was held at the " house of Evert Van Wickle" in Lyons village. 
The officers chosen were as follows : — Azariah Willis, supervisor, 
Joseph Taylor, town clerk ; other town officers : — Norman Merry, 
Samuel Caldwell, Chas. Cameron, Moses Sill, E. Van Wickle, 
Timothy Smith, Joseph Wood, David Sweezy, Daniel Russell, 
Henry Love well, Wm. White, Reuben Adams, Samuel Nelson, 
David Sweezy, and John Van Wickle. 

At a special town meeting in 1799, held " at the house of John 
Briggs," John Perrine, Timothy Smith, and Samuel Caldwell were 
chosen school commissioners. 

There was at this period on the tax roll, the names of 50 persons, 
some of whom were non-residents; the settlers would seem to have 



402 PHELPS AM) GOEHAJl's PUECIIASE. 

been located in Lyons village, on the road from Lyons to Sodus 
Point, at the Point, and on the Palmyra road, with the exception of 
Brown and Richards, on the Lake shore between the Point and 
Pulteneyville. In 1800, Timothy Smith was supervisor. In this 
year the first records of roads were made. Two dollars bounty 
was voted for wolf scalps "with the skin thereon ; " and it was also 
voted that " hog yokes be eight inches above the neck." It was 
also voted that Elias Dickinson, who it is presumed was a Justice of 
the peace in Phelps, " be allowed $S for opening town meetings 
two years past." 

In 1799, the District gave Charles Williamson and Nathaniel 
Norton, candidates for Assembly, each 23 votes. In 1800 Thomas 
Morris had the unanimous vote of the district, 68, for representative 
of the Western District in Congress. 

In 1801 the district "neglected to hold town meeting," but three 
justices of the county, Wm. Rogers, Darius Comstock and Ezra 
Patterson, met at the house of Oliver Kendall, and appointed John 
Perrine, supervisor, and Richard Jones town clerk. 

Pulteneyville is upon the shore of Lake Ontario, at the mouth of 
Little Salmon creek. The waters of the fine pure stream that have 
been collecting upon the slope in Marion and Williamson, on ap- 
proaching the Lake, seem to have been coy and hesitating in falU 
ing into its embrace ; meandering along for a considerable distance, 
nearly | arallel with the Lake shore, a ridge elevated from 35 to 40 
feet, affords fine building ground overlooking the Lake. Two prom- 
ontories put out above and below the entrance of the cre'ek into the 
Lake, which, with a bluff shore, aflbrds the means of making a very 
good harbor with a small comparative expenditure of money. It 
Avas a prominent locality in long years of French and English do- 
minion — the frequent stopping place for the small craft that coasted 
along the Lake shore. Although the locality was marked by Mr. 
Williamson in his plans of improvement, and is mentioned in his 
correspondence with his principals, no commencement was made 
there under his auspices. 

Previous to 1806, William Waters was the only resident there. 
In that year, Capt. Samuel Throop, changed his residence from 
Manchester to Pulteneyville, accompanied by his father-in-law, 
Jeremiah Selby, who had settled at Palmyra as early as 1801. 
They erected a saw mill and grist mill on Little Salmon creek. 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHAil's PUECHASE. 403 

Capt. Throop kept the first public house at Pulteneyville. Russel 
Whipple, becoming a resident there in early years, built the schooner 
" Laura,' which was sailed by Capt. Throop. The widow of Capt. 
Throop, is now the wife of Major William Rodgers, of Pulteneyville. 
In addition to the son named in a note attached, Capt. Washington 
Throop, of Pulteneyville, is another son. Daughters became the 
wives of W. H. Rodgers and Capt. Andrew HoUing, of Pulteneyville. 
Joseph Colt, the early merchant at Canandaigua and Geneva, 
was the pioneer merchant at Pulteneyville. Jacob W. Hallett, late 
of New York, was an early resident of Pultneyville, as was Samuel 
Ledyard, who is a resident there now ; of both whom, especially 
of the latter, whose family was early identified with all the region 
west 01 Utica, the author is in hopes to be able to say something in 
another connection. 



CHAPTER VII, 



PIONEER EVENTS IN WHAT IS NOW MONROE. 



In December, 1789, the Shaeffer family became the pioneer set- 
tlers in all the region west of the Genesee river, and in fact of the 
whole valley of the Genesee, if we except those who had blended 
themselves with the Indians, were Indian traders, or had become 
squatters upon Indian lands, in their flight from the Mohawk and 
Susquehannah, during the border wars. With reference to pe ma- 
nent settlement and improvement, they must be regarded as the 
Pioneers of the Genesee Valley. 

Note. — A singular train of Lake disasters and deatlis, is connected with this pio- 
neer family : — Capt. Throop himself was drowned from the schooner Lark, of which 
be was master, while attempting to enter Sodiis Bay, in a gale, in 1819. Previous to 
which, Mrs. Throop with two young childi'en, in a skiff with her husband, Jeremiah 
B. Selby and George Ai'mstrong, were going a few miles up the Lake ; the skiff 
filled, the children were drowned, and Mrs. Throop barely escaped. At the early 
age of 18, the present well known Capt. Horatio N". Throop, of the steam boat Onta- 
rio, became a navigator of the Lake, as the master of a small schooner, which he had 
built himself. In 1825 on his way to Oswego, a cargo of corn with which he was 
laden became damp, swelled, the vessel suddenly bursting and sinking. Two lads on 
board drowned, and Capt. Throop himself escaped by swimming to the shore, four 
miles, on a door that had become detached. 



404 PHELP3 AND GOrJIAifs PURCHASE. 

Peter Shaeffer, the elder, was a native of Berks county, Pa., but 
emiprated from Lancaster to this rei:fion, at the advanced age of 
85 years. His family who became permanent residents, consisted 
of himself and his sons Peter and Jacob. In July, 1789, they came 
first to Geneva, and then to Ganargwa creek, in Bloomfield, where 
they purchased 1200 acres of land of Gen. Fellows. Remaining 
there until December, the old gentleman apportioned that tract 
among his three daughters, and went upon the river with his sons. 
They found Ebenezer Allan, the owner of the fine tract of flats and 
upland at the mouth of Allan's creek, adjoining the present village 
of Scottsville. He had a comfortable log house, upon a gentle 
swell of land, which may be observed a short distance from the 
confluence of the creek and river. He was living then with a 
young white wife, whose name had been Lucy Chapman. Her 
family on their way to Canada, had stopped with him, and by the 
solicitations of Mrs. Dugan, (Allan's sister,) Lucy remained to keep 
her company. A sham magistrate came along soon after and made 
her a joint partner with some half dozen natives, in the affections 
of the then lord of the Genesee Valley. Mrs. Dugan, had come 
on some years previous, with her husband and joined her brother, 
and had been his housekeeper. Allan had acquired three hundred 
acres of land by gift from the Indians, to which he had added one 
hundred and seventy by purchase, from Phelps and Gorham. He 
had a stock of goods for the Indian trade.* He had 50 or 60 acres 
of open flats under the plough, 20 acres of wheat upon the ground; 
some horses and cattle. A few years previous he had wintered 
seventy head of cattle on rushes, f 

The Shaefters became the purchasers of his fine tract of land, 
paying him the then high price of $2,50 per acre ; though it must 



* And "thereby liangs a tale : " — Theso goods were obtained of John Butler, Brit- 
ish superintendent of Indian affairs at Niagara. Tliey -were taken from the King's 
store house, and were evidently intended for Indian jiresent.s upon the Genesee river; 
to keep the Indians favorable to the British interests, and strengthen the British claim 
to dominion over the whole of the western portion of this State. But the agent mis- 
applied his trusts ; he bought furs with the goods; — they became oftenergifts of gal- 
lantry than tliosoof diplomacy. Butler made a business matter of it; demanded pay for 
the goods ; Allan contested the claim, but it Avas finally compromised by the interven- 
tion of James Wadsworth, Esq. 

t After coming upon the Genesee river, he had become a grazer and drover. But- 
ler's Rangers and the Indians would steal cattle from the Mohawk and the Susquehan- 
nali, and drive them to him. After keeping them upon the river, until they became good 
beef, they Avould command a ready sale at high prices, at Fort Niagara and in Canada. 



PHELPS AND GOSHABl's PURCHASE. 405 

be considered that sixty acres of improvement was then a valuable 
acquisition. Allan included in the sale, one acre of wheat upon the 
ground and a sow pig.* The father and sons added to Allan' house- 
hold for the winter, subsisting upon the milk of two cows they 
brought in, and Indian pudding that Mrs. Dugan cooked for them. 

Allan had erected the saw mill at the Falls, (now Rochester) in 
the summer previous, and had his timber out for the gristmill. The 
money that he realized for his farm, enabled him to push forward his 
enterprise. The grist mill was raised the forepart of winter. The 
frame was 26 by 30, of heavy timber. All the able bodied white 
men in the Genesee valley were invited to the raising — and they 
numbered fourteen, all told. It took them two days. A trading 
boat happening to enter the mouth of the river, while they were 
raising, some rum was procured, and the backwoodsmen had a 
dance in the mill, and a rejoicing at the prospect of something better 
to prepare meal for their bread than the stump mortar. 

The Shaeffers brought apple seeds with them from Pennsylvania, 
and planted them in December, 1799. These were the first apple 
seeds, (other than the old French orchard at Schlosser,) planted in 
the Genesee country, west of the river. 

After Allan had sold his farm to the Shaeffers, he went back to 
Mt. Morris, purchased goods at Philadelphia, bringing them in from 
the back settlements of Pennsylvania, on horseback. In the season 
of '90, he sowed 100 acres of wheat, besides raising considerable 
corn. Like Alexander Selkirk, he was " lord of all he surveyed ;" 
commanded the services of the Indians to work his fields for rum 
and trinkets, occasionally pressing into his service the Butler Ran- 
gers, who had stopped in the valley, in their flight from the Mohawk 
and the Susquehannah ; paying them sometimes, but often arbitrarily 
adjusting their services to suit himself, as there was then no au- 
thority superior to his own. His gallantries, truthfully related, would 
equal the tales of eastern romance ; the " turbaned turk might have 
yielded to him supremacy ; it extended even to the employment of 
a purveyor, in the person of a Dutchman, Andrews. About this 
time, alternating in his tastes between his own and another race, 



* Tliat same sovr pi^ cost a night's lorlginff in the woods. She took to the ■woods 
early in the spring, and had to be looked up when winter came again. In the search, 
the present Peter Shaeffei got benighted and slept in a liollow log through a winter 
night. 



406 PHELPS AKD GOEHAm's PUKCHASE. 

he took another white wife, the daughter of a Ranger, named Greg- 
ory, who Hved upon the Canascraga flats, near Dansville.* 

Mr. Shaeffer contradicts the story of Allan's murder of the 
Dutchman, Andrews,! but he says that he murdered a boy that 
lived with him, and points out the grave, near the site of Allan's 
residence, on the Shaeffer flats. The boy was sent for a bucket of 
water, and playing by the way, Allan met him, took the bucket 
from him, and beat him to death with it. 

He was, says Mr. Shaeffer, mild and conciliating, when he had a 
selfish end to accomplish ; but always severe and harsh with his 
dependents. A refugee, a negro slave, had during the Revolution, 
come from the Mohawk to the Genesee river, and domiciled with 
the Indians. He was called " Captain Sun Fish." He was shrewd, 
intelligent, became a trader in cattle, selling in Canada, and at Fort 
Niagara, took a squaw wife, and acquired considerable money. At 
one time he was settled at the mouth of Tonawanda creek. Cov- 
eting his money, and wishing, perhaps, in the way of matrimony to 
try a third race, Allan married one of his daughters. Getting pos- 
session of the money, however, he discarded the mixed negro and 
Indian wife ; but as if there were some redeeming traits in his char- 
acter, he pensioned the old negro, and allowed him a hut upon his 
Allan's creek farm. Sun Fish finally went to Tonawanda, where 
his descendants now reside. 

Jacob Schoonover and his family had preceded the Shaeffers a 
few months, and settled near the mouth of Dugan's creek. Peter 
Shaeffer married his daughter, in 1790. He and his wife died in 
1838, '9, at the ages of 93 and 94. Mrs. Shaeffer died in 1835, aged 
63 years. 

The whole valley of the river below Mr. Shaeffer's, was slow in 
settling. The first settler was Joseph Morgan, his farm adjoining 
the Shaeffer farm, in '92 ; a daughter of his, Mrs. Early, now occu- 
pies the place. His son, Joseph Morgan, resides on the river, a short 

* When he emigrated to Canada, be undertook to lessen the number of his white 
■wives, by prociirin^ tlie drowning of this last one. Two men that were hired for the 
purpose, took her down in a canoe, and purposely ran over the falls near the present 
aqueduct; swimming ashore themselves, but leanug her to go over the mam falls. 
She, however, disappointed them, saving herself, and soon appearing in the presence 
of her faithless lord, at the mouth of the river, a dripping water nymph. She follow- 
ed him to Canada, and became one of his new household there. 

t He went over the Genesee Falls, when taking mill irons down for the old Allan 
mill ; the boat and irons were found below the Falls. 



PHELPS AND GOEIIA:m's PURCHASE. 407 

distance below. In some of the earliest years, Peabody 

erected a distillery, first at Handford's Landing, and afterwards, on 
the Joseph Morgan place ; Wm. Peabody, of Scottsville, is a son ^f 
his. Andrew Wortman was a settler upon the river, as early as 
'94 or '5, occupying the farm that belonged to Samuel Street, of 
Chippewa, who was his brother-in-law. Caleb Aspinwall, Peter 
Conkle, Frederick and Nicholas Hetzteller, were early in the Shaef- 
fer neighborhood. Reuben Heth, a Vermonter, stopping first at 
Bloomfield, came upon the river, in early years, worked for Mr. 
Sheefler, without a change of his buckskin breeches and buckskin 
coat, until he had earned enough to pay for a farm. He died about 
twenty years since, a man of wealth, and the founder of a highly 
respectable family. Eldridge Heth, of Wheatland, is a son ; Mrs. 
Hyde, Mrs. Nettleton, and Mrs. Halsted, are his daughters. 

The two story, venerable looking farm house, near which is the 
old apple orchard, on the Genesee Valley canal, a short distance 
below Scottsville, is the residence of Peter Shaeflfer. The fine flats 
spread out before it, in a high state of cultivation, with long lines 
of wire fence, are those he purchased from " Indian Allan." In a 
romantic spot, at the end of the ridge, that will be observed rising 
upon the flats, and terminating near the river and creek, stood the 
log dwelling, which served the purposes of a farm house, a store, and 
a harem, for this singular man, who fled from civilization, first to 
become the scourge of his own race and kindi^ed, and afterwards to 
repay the confidence and hospitality of another race, by a career 
among them, marked throughout by selfishness and sensuality. 

It will hardly do to talk of antiquity, in a country where our race 
, have been occupants but . sixty years, in allusion to any relic of 
their advent. But the old Shaeffer home, with all its historical as- 
sociations, maybe said to look antiquated. It was built in 1789, be- 
fore the new discovery, the cut nail, was in use, and all the doors had 
to be made consequently with wrought nails. Its strap door hinges, 
its locks, handles and latches were made by a blacksmith, who had 
come into the country ; none other could then be procured. It was 
the first framed farm dwelling, in all the region between Genesee river 
and Lake Erie. When it was building, the surveyors were making 
the preliminary surveys of most of all the territory now comprised in 
the counties of Orleans, Niagara, Erie, Genesee, Wyoming, Allega- 
ny, Cattaraugus, and Chautauque ; Buffalo contained three log 



408 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

dwellings, and Mr. Ellicot was making an opening to erect the first 
log dwelling at Batavia. For ten years after that house was com- 
pleted, and twenty years after its venerable surviving occupant was 
cultivating large fields ; when tho-^e apple trees had become bear- 
ers, from the seeds he had planted, the site of a city of 40,000 in- 
habitants, was a rugged and forbidding wilderness ! The orchard 
was planted six years before the British gave up all claim to W. N. 
York, and surrendered Fort Niagara, and the house built but two 
years afterwards. 

The father and brother of Peter ShaeflTer died in early years. 
The fine start which the improvements gave him — the ready mar- 
ket he found for his early large crops of corn • — ■ the facilities he en- 
joyed for exchanging provisions for labor, with the new comers 
that dropped in around him, were advantages he well improved ; and 
to which he soon added grazing and droving ; his market, Fort Niag- 
ara and Canada. He added to his original land purchase, by degrees, 
until he had a large possession; and a competence of wealth has 
rewarded his early enterprise. He is now in his 88th year; his 
faculties not materially impaired, his memory of early events reten- 
tive and intelligent ; and with the exception of a diseased ankle, his 
physical constitution holds out remarkably for one of his age. In 
his younger days, he used spirituous liquors moderately ; none for 
tL3 last twenty years ; and as an example to old tobacco chewers, it 
may be added, that he was one of them for half a century, but is not of 
them now. He has been the occupant of different town offices, and 
has always enjoyed the esteem of his fellow citizens. The Scotch 
settlers who became his neighbors, in indigent circumstances, and 
the pioneers of different neighborhoods, in the western part of 
Monroe county, many of them speak of his kindness in early years, 
in furnishing them with grain and pork, upon credit; and in return 
the old gentleman pays a high compliment to the honesty of the 
primitive settlers, by saying that of the numerous debts thus con- 
tracted, he recollects no instance where he ultimately failed to re- 
ceive his pay. He speaks of the gratification it used to give him, to 
supply with a few bushels of grain, some potatoes, or pork, perhaps, 
settlers in the backwoods, (to be carried off', generally, upon their 
backs,) who he has lived to see become the owner of broad fields and 
crowded granaries. The surviving sons of Peter Shaeffer, are : — 
Peter, Levi, Daniel, George ; the last of whom is the owner and 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 409 

occupant of the old homestead, and one of the best farmers and stock 
breeders in the Genesee valley. Mrs, Philip Garbut and Mrs. 
Caleb Allen, are his daughters. His children all reside in Wheat- 
land and Chili. 



REMINISCENCES OF PETER SHAEFFER. 



It was several yeai-s after settlement commenced upon the liver, before the 
Ridge Road was known ; an Indian trail went from the mouth of the River 
to Fort Niagara, keeping near the Lake shore ; and another trail was along 
the west bank of the river from Canawagus to mouth of river. Peter and 
Jacob Shaett'er laid out a road from Allan's creek to the Falls, in '92 ; had 
no compass; took ranges from trees; but the road as it now exists, is mainly 
on the old route. It was improved, the streams bridged with logs, so that 
teams could pass in the winter of '93, '4. 

Deer were plenty ; bears and wolves made it troublesome to keep sheep oi 
hogs; but the raccoon was the most troublesome animal we liad to contend 
with. To save their corn, the new settlers were obliged to hunt them, but 
their fur sold readily, and paid for the hunting. At some seasons the pigeons 
were very abundant ; they could be taken in large numbers, by the use of nets ; 
the breasts were cut out, salted, and they made very good eating. Trout 
were so plenty in Allan's creek, that a string of an hundred and an hundred 
and fifty, could be taken without changing gi'ound. At Dumplin Hill, on 
one occasion, a panther was a victim to his voracious appetite. Killing a deer, 
he gorged himself, became stupid, an Indian found him helpless, and shot him. 

Up to 1794, there was a constant intercourse kept up between the British 
at Fort Niagara, and in Canada, and the Indians upon the river. A large 
proportion of the Indians inclined to the British interests, and by meims of 
runners, and speeches sent from Gov. Simcoe and Lord Dorchester, the idea 
was constantly inculcated that the British would soon want their aid against 
the United States. Just before the victory of Gen. Wayne, believing as they 
were made to believe, from some source, that he would be defeated, they 
were menacing and insolent. When a large party of them were encamped 
on the fiats of Allan's creek, on their way to become allies against Wayne, 
some of the painted warriore gave out that they would return with help enough 
to drive off the whites. The victory created a better state of things, kit there 
was not a feeling of perfect security until the surrender of Fort Niagara, in 
1796. 

"I have been the commissary of an army," said Mr. Shaefler, and he ex- 
plained : — When the American troops were on their way up the Lake to take 
])o.ssession of Fort Niag-ara, in batteaux, they met with head winds, put back 
into the Genesee river, where theii- provisions failed. Hearing of Mr. Shaefter, 
they, came up the river, quartered in his barn, and he supplied them with 
poik and Indian meal, taking the officer's note. When they bi'oke up their 
quarters, Mr. Shaefler piloted them to Caledonia Springs, put them upon the 
26 



410 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

trail, and amving at Tonawaiula, Poudry piloted them to Fort Niagara, where 
they were the first to raise the American flag. The next winter, Sir. Shaeffer 
di'ove cattle to Canada, visited Fort Niagara, and receiv'ed his pay. 

Mary Jemison once staid at Mr. Shaelter's o\-er night, on her way with a 
hunting party, to the mouth of the river. She related the story of her cap- 
tivity, and said she was haiij)y in her Indian relations, and preferred to remain 
rather than to rejoin her friends. 



William Hencher was a native of Brookfield, Mass., a soldier of 
the Revolution, he afterwards became a partizan of Shay, in the 
Massachusetts rebellion. While transporting some provisions to 
the insurgents, he was overtaken by some of the opposing military, 
fled, leaving his teams, and sought refuge in the then wild regions 
of western New York. He came first to Newtown Point, remained 
there one year, was joined by his family, and located in the neigh- 
borhood of Col. Sterrett, on Big Flats. In August, 1791, he and 
his son William, then eleven years of age, went to the mouth of the 
Genesee river, wherb they found Walker, the Ranger, located in a 
log hut on the east side of the river, near its mouth, the solitary oc- 
cupant, short of Irondequoit Bay, Orange Stones, and Peter 
ShaefFers. Determining upon a settlement, Mr. Hencher, with the 
help of his son, went up to Long Pond, cut wild grass for the stock 
they intended to bring on, erected a hut on the west side of the 
river, and returned to Big Flats ; carrying with them, however, a 
sufficient amount of the fever and ague to last them nearly through 
the winter. 

In February, '92, he moved in by the way of Seneca Lake and 
Catherine's Town, upon ox-sleds. At Irondequoit, was the end of 
any road. Mr. Hencher cut his road before his teams, striking the 
river above the Falls, and then down on the east side to Walker's, 
where the family remained until the last of March, when they 
crossed the river and occupied the hut they had erected in the fall, 
the roof of which was dry wild grass. This was the first hut of a 
white man erected on the shores of Lake Ontario, between the 
Genesee river and Fort Niagara. The family consisted of the 
father, mother, one son, and seven daughters. Clearing a few acres 
the first season, and planting a few acres that Walker had cleared, 
they got some summer crops ; and also erected a comfortable log 
house. The place was much frequented by emigrants and boat- 
men, who came to camp on shore. Mr. Hencher soon commenced 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 411 

traffic with boatmen, emigrants and Indians, to which business he 
soon added a brisk trade in fish. He and his son, having procured 
a boat, would cross Lake Ontario to the river Credit, and purchase 
fresh sahnon, and sometimes catch them in the Oak Orchard and 
the Irondequoit. These he would carry back into the settlements, 
and exchange for butter and cheese, which he would market in 
Canada, making large profits. Purchasing six hundred acres of 
land, he supported a large family, and paid for the land twice, the 
first title proving defective. The old gentleman died soon after the 
war of 1812, his wife surviving until 1848, when she died at the 
age of 93 years. The eldest daughter married Thomas Lee; she 
survives, and is a resident at Pittsford. Hers was the first marriage 
that took place upon the west side of the river, except that of Peter 
Shaeffer. Another sister married Bartholomew Maybee, and is 
yet living in Ohio ; another, Stephen Lusk, of Pittsford, and is yet 
livmg ; another, Jonathan Leonard, of Parma, and is yet living ; 
another, Donald M'Kenzie, of Caledonia, and is yet living. Two 
others, Mrs. Clement, of Cleveland, and Mrs. Abel Rowe, of Parma, 
are dead. Seven Pioneer wives and mothers came from under one 
roof! Of the eight children, six are living ; and yet, they have 
passed through the most rugged scenes of pioneer life, and their 
location was, in early years, deemed the most unhealthy of all the 
new settlements ! The eldest is 80, and the youngest 65. The old 
gentleman lived to see all of his children married and settled. The 
only son, William Hencher, is 71 years of age ; resides in Andover, 
Allegany county, with faculties unimpaired, his m.emory enabling 
him to relate early events with minuteness and accuracy. 



REMINISCENCES OF WM. HENCHER, 2d. 



For two years after we came to the moiitli of the Genesee river, many of 
the Indians were ugly, threatening and quarrelsome. Pending the victory 
of Wayne, iny father had made up his mind to leave the country, if the re- 
sidthad been adverse; but his courage was renewed when the Senecas came 
back from the fight, tame and spiritless, complaining of the conduct of their 
British allies in shutting themselves up in a foi-t, and not coming to their res- 
cue, as they had been made to believe they would. We all expected that if 
Wayne was defeated, the western Indians would come down and aid the 
Senecas in a war upon the whites in this region. The mouth of the Genesee 
River, Braddock's Bay, and Irondequoit Bay, were hunting, trapping, and 



412 PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

fishing grounds of the Senecas, and at times, the Mississaguas from Canada 
would be encamped about them in large numbers. 

Some of the fii'st hogs that my father brought in became wild; a boar, es- 
pecially, became almost the lord of the forest. Huddling his flock together, 
he would alone flght and conquer bears who attempted to attack them ; and 
he was more than a match, with his long tusks, for all the dog-s of the coun- 
try. On one occasion, he treed an Indian, and kept him up until he was re- 
lieved by othei-s. 

Indian Allan came down and staid with us for sevenil davs, when he 
moved to Canada, awaiting the arrival of a boat from Niagara, which he had 
chartered. He had a boat load of etlects, one Squaw and two white wives. 

When the British held Fort Niagara and Oswego, a mail used to be earned 
between them by watei' in summer, and by a runner in winter, travelling on 
snow shoes. Elisha Scuddei', who lived at Ii-ondequoit, wa.s crossing the Bay 
in a canoe — saw a bear swiijiming — struck at him — missed, the axe going 
out of his hands into the water. The bear, tired of swimming, mounted into 
the canoe, and remained in it till it reached the shore ; ste])ping out, and 
marching off deliberately, without even thanking the ferrymtra. John 
Parks, the hunter, made my father's house his head quarters. Near Ironde- 
quoit Bay, wounding a bear, the animal turned and attacked him; bear and 
hunter clenched, and a desperate light ensued. Parks conquered, killing the 
bear Avith his knife, but was dreadfully bitten and lacerated. He crawled to 
our house, several miles, on his hands and knees. Dr. Hosmer came down 
and dressed his woimds. 

Parks and the mulatto Dunbai-, who li\cd at Irondeqnoit, A\ere out after 
coons upon the Lake shore. Their dogs treed one, as they supposed. It was 
darlf ; Dunbar climbed the tree, until he discovered a pair of eyes larger than 
coons usually ha\e, and backed down. They built up fires, remained until 
morning, when they found their game a laige panther, which they shot. 

The dens of the lattle snakes were all along in the banks of the river be- 
low the Falls. In the first warm days in the spiing, they would come out, 
roll and entwine themselves in large coils, with their heads sticking out; so 
torpid, you could kill them easily. Tliis would continue until the weather 
was settled ; then they would go out upon their summer rambles, not returning 
to their dens until cold weather came again. I have killed forty in a day. 
On one occasion, in the spring of the year, we got together all we could i-aise, 
went up the river in canoes, and killed 300 in one day. I have no doubt of 
the snake's power of charming his victim. I have killed rattle snakes that 
had swallowed ohipnuicks and birds, and have often seen birds fluttering over 
black snakes, with a[ii>arently no power to get away until I had disturbed the 
snake, when they would quickh' take the wing. 

The next summer after we came in, John Love, Avho had married a daugh- 
ter of Dr. Adams of Geneva, came and hved with us. Dr. Adams had pur- 
chaseil land upon the Lake shore, of Mr. Williamson. My father and Love 
went up to Esq. Shaeffei'S and bought some corn, took it down to the Allan 
mill in a canoe, gi'ound it themselves, backed it over the portage down to a point 
a little above Handford's Landing, where they made ropes of bark and let it 
down in a canoe. 

Deer were abundant. I have killed six in one hour. Braddock's Bay was 
a famous place for flapping otters, muskrats and minks. Geese and ducks 



PHELPS AXD GOEHAm's PURCnASE. 413 

bred in tlie Bay, in the pond, in Irondeqnoit Bay. We could procure their 
eggs in any desired quantity. 

Our eaily route up the river was an old Indian trail that bore ofl' from the 
river to avoid Deep Hollow, and came upon it again at Scottsville ; arid it 
w"as many yeai-s before we had any thing but a wood's road through the pre- 
sent city of Rochester. 

A very likely Indian — Tuscarora Charles — and his Squaw, were almost 
constantly encamped at the mouth of the river and Braddock's Bay. When 
Walker went to Canada in '93, Charles went with me to drive his cattle. 
On our return, aniving at a camping ground, where the village of Cary- 
ville, Genesee county, now is, we found Joseph Brant, witli a white waiter, 
en his way to Canada. He was well dressed, after the fashion of white men ; 
but before we parted, he changed his dress entirely, putting on an Indian 
dress, and getting Charles to paint him like an Indian warrior. This was be- 
fore reaching Tonawaudji, and I fancied that he pi-eferred appearing among 
his own people like one of them. 

There was a great change when the British gave up Oswego and Niagara : 
na^ngation of the Lake was brisk ; surveyors and emigrants on their way to 
New Connecticut, often put into the mouth of the river. 

We had but little sickness in our family ; called Dr. Hosmer on one or two 
occasions. He used but little medicine ; he recommended to my mother the 
use of the extract of butternut root, as an ordinary cathartic, and she was 
well convinced of its effiaey. 

During the Revolution, Butler's Rangers that did not go to Canada, were 
scattered along among the Indians, on the Susquehannah and Tioga rivers, 
Seneca Lake, and Genesee river. To arrest the march of Sullivan, Butler 
and Brant came from Canada, Butler to head the Rangers, and Brant to 
head the Indians. When they were defeated and driven before Sulhvan's 
army. Brant with his Indian allies, took the Niagara trail for Canada; and 
Butler and his Rangers went down to the mouth of the Genesee river, after 
sending Walker as a runner to Niagara to have boats sent down. They en- 
camped, made no fires for fear the smoke would betray them, fired no guns, 
kept as quiet as possible, fearing that Sullivan's scouts would discover their 
retreat. Tiiere were several days delay of the boats, and when Walker ar- 
rived with them, Butler and his men were nearly famished for the want of 
food. 

Mr. Hunt, the Pioneer at Johnson's Creek, Niagara county, was a 

prisoner at Fort Niagara during the Border Wars. Walker was then on the 
other side, and one day was sent by Col. Butler over to enquire of the com- 
manding officer of the Fort if he had any news ? " Tell Col. Butler," said 
the British commandant, "that there is bad news; the d — d rebels have 
earned the day, and there will be no place left for us but Nova Scotia, where 
it is colder than is hot." * 



* This was just after the battle of Yorktown. The reader may fill the blank with 
the name of the warmest locality he can think of. The Walker alluded to by Messrs. 
Shaeffcr and Hencher, was frora'Minlsink. Becoming a Butler Ranger, in the flight 
of that corps to Canada after the uusuccessfid attempt to arrest the march of Sullivan, 
he stopped at the moutli of the Genesee rirer, on the ea-st side, erected a log cabin, and 
lived there until his removal to Canada. He will have to be considered the first of 



414 

Isaac Scott was the first owner and occupant of the present vil- 
lage of Scottsville. He emigrated from Vermont, in company 
with Aaron and lessee Beach,* in 1790, to Avon, and they located 
at the mouth of Allan's creek soon after, if not in the same year. 
Scott died in 1818; many of his descendants reside at Whitewater, 
Indiana. Other early settlers there not named in other connections : 
— Hinds Chamberlin, Samuel Cox, Israel Hall, William Frazier, 
James Woods, D. S. Winter, Johil Smith, who was an early sur- 
veyor employed by Messrs. Phelps, Williamson and Wadsworth, 
Robert and Thomas Smith, of Chili, are his sons. 

Samuel Street of Niagara Falls, C. W., purchased soon after 
1790, (of Ebenezer Allan it is presumed,) what has long been known 
as the Street farm, at Dugan's creek on the river. In earliest the 
years of settlement, Jeremiah Olmsted, his brother-in-law, came from 
Fairfield, Conn., with his family, and occupied it. Considerable 
improvements had been made upon the farm by Allan and Dugan, 
and Mr. Street had stocked it largely for that early period. Of the 
family, and those employed upon the farm, ten persons died the first 
year of the " Genesee fever," among whom was Mrs. Olmsted. In 
'98 or '9, Mr. Olmsted moved down the river and occupied a hut, on 
the present site of Rochester, south of the House of Refuge, near 
where M'Kerchney's brewery now stands, where he cleared a small 
spot. This was the first blow struck in the way of improvement, 
other than at the Allan mill, on all the present site of the city of Roch- 
ester. " Ths shantee," says the author's informant, " had been put 
up by one Farwell ; " one of the brothers it is presumed, who are 
named in another connection. Mr. Olmsted remained upon the 
spot but one year; long enough, however, to produce the first crops 



* A daughter of Isaac Scott, who ^vas the wife of Jesse Beach, now resides with 
her son, Cyrus Beach, at Cambria, Niag-ara county; aged 82 years. Slie says her father 
and the Beaches paid 50 cents per acre for hind in and about Scottsville. The author 
gives a reminiscence in her own words : — "There was a man they called Allan about 
there when we came ; he kept a number of cattle on the flats, and had two or three 
squaws that staid with liim ; they browsed and took care of the cattle." 

oirr race who inhabited all the present county of Monroe. He had with him either two 
step-daughters, or women living in a more questionable capacity. He lunted, fished, 
and trafficked with batteauxnu^n. An earlv map of all this region, engraved in London, 
has n]ion it no sign of civilization or habitation, on all the Lake shore between Os- 
wego and Niagai-a, except the picture of a log cabin at the mouth of the Genesee 
tiver.and underneath it the word "Walker's." 



PHELPS AND GOEIIAM's PUECHASE. 415 

ever grown upon the site of Rochester. He went upon the Ridge, 
becoming the neighbor of Daniel Rowe. He was the collector of 
taxes for Northampton, in 1799, and like his predecessor, Simon 
King, and his successor, Peter Shaefter, his tax roll embraced the 
whole region between the Genesee and Niagara rivers. He changed 
his residence to Handford's Landing in 1816, where he died the 
same year. Harry Olmsted, of Greece, his son and successor, still 
survives ; has been long known as a tavern keeper, on River road, 
hear Handford's Landing; another son resides in Canada, and Mrs. 
Billington of Allegany county, is a daughter. Harry Olmsted, was 
at the mouth of the river, and upon Niagara frontier in the war of 
1812, at one period a member of Capt. Rowe's company, at another 
enrolled in the cavalry of Major Stone. He was in the battle at 
Lundy's Lane, and was at Fort Erie in the affair of the 15th of 
August. 

As early as April, 1797, all the region between the Genesee river 
and Lake Erie, was made a separate town of Ontario county, called 
Northampton. The first town meeting was held at the house of 
Peter Shaeffer. " The vote was taken by Gad Wadsworth, Esq., 
of the town of Hartford." Josiah Fish was chosen supervisor, Eli 
Granger, town clerk. Other town officers : — Joseph Morgan, Jo- 
siah Fish, Peter Shaeffer, Elijah Kent, Jeremiah Olmsted, Gideon 
King, Christopher Dugan, Isaac Scott, Hinds Chamberlin, Simon 
King, 

It will be observed that there were but three road districts. Thev 
were on the river, from Canawagus to Lake Ontario ; no road then 
leading into the interior. The inhabitants were so few, that one 
man held no less than three town offices. Fifty dollars was raised 
to defray the expenses of the town. In that year 18d., was au- 
thorized to be expended for " election boxes," 

In 1799, most of the same officers were re-elected, and Jesse 
Beach who had settled on the road west of Caledonia, was made a 
path master, the first west of Caledonia Fifty dollars was raised 
for town expenses, and the like sum, " payable in labor or produce," 
for the erection of bridges. 

In 1800, the town officers chosen were distributed along on west 
bank of the river and along the main road to the village of Buffalo. 
For instance: — two path-masters I'esided upon the river, one at 
Le Roy, another at Stafford, another at Durham's Grove, another 



416 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

at Clarence Hollow, and another in Buffalo. In this year, .$200 
was raised for building a bridge over the creek at " Buttermilk Falls." 
In an accouni current between the town, and Josiah Fish, supervisor, 
for the years '97, '8, '9, '90, he is credited for money expended on 
" Bridge over Deep Hollow," (Rochester) 8475. In this year, Peter 
Shaefler was collector of the town. The number of names upon 
his tax roll was less than 150, and a large number of them were 
those of non-residents. Although the whole tax was over 8?,000, 
the sum paid by resident landholders was less than 82,00. In the 
collection of it Mr. Shaeffer found it much cheaper to pay himself 
many of the small amounts, than to look up those to whom they 
were assessed, scattered as they were in the forest. To reach the 
town of Lewiston, from Buffalo, he had to cross the Niagara river 
and go down on the Canada side. 

In 1801, 8100 were raised "for destroying wolves, and paying 
other contingent charges of the town." It was voted that the 
"wolfs head must have the entire skin thereon." A resolution was 
passed, that " from the extensive boundaries of the town, it is neces- 
sary it should be divided. " 

A glance at the records of 1802, shew the progress of settlement 
westward ; although the town meetings were still continued at the 
house of Peter Shaeffer, and Col. Fish was continued supervisor, the 
path-masters began to occupy a wide range : — Abel Rowe was a 
a path-master in the now town of Greece ; Asa Utley, near Scotts- 
ville ; Daniel Buell, at Le Roy ; Jas. M'Naughton, Caledonia ; 
Ezekiel Lane, Buffalo ; Joseph Howell and Lemuel Cooke at Niag- 
ara Falls and Lewiston ; Richard M. Stoddard of Le Roy was one 
of the commissioners of highways ; and Isaac Sutherland of Batavia 
was a constable. 

In 1803, the towns of Leicester, Batavia, and Southhampton, were 
erected from Northampton by a resolution adopted at a special town 
meeting. The commissioners appointed to fix the boundaries of the 
four towns, were: — Elijah Kent, R. M. Stoddard, Samuel Tupper, 
John Thompson. 

The first general election for all the region west of Genesee River, 
was in April, 1800. For Congress, Thomas Morris had 37 votes. 
For members of Assembly, Nathaniel Norton had 37, Lemuel Chip- 
man 25, William Dunn 10. In 1801, Stephen Van Rensselaer had 
78 votes for Governor, George Clinton 10. For delegates to state 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 41'? 

convention ; — Moses Atwater 52, John Knox 77, Israel Chapin 21, 
Amos Hall 6. In 1802, for Congress, Oliver Phelps 117, N.W. 
Howell IG; for members of Assembly, Joseph Ellicott 117, Aug. 
Porter 117, Daniel Chapin 121, Thaddeus Chapin 5, Ebenezer Merry 
2, Pollydore B. Wisner 12. This was the last election previous to 
the erection of Genesee county. 

First road recorded is from Braddock's Bay to distillery of 
Stephen Peabody, on River, a short distance below Mr. ShaefFer's. 
This, it is presumed, was what had been called the " Williamson 
road," — the first avenue opened to reach the Bay fi om the Buffalo 
road. The 2d : — " From Landing place below the Falls, to Land- 
ing place above the Allan mill." 3d: — Across the flats of the 
River near Cuylerville. 4th: — From "mouth of River to Canawa- 
gus, and from thence to east bounds .of Peter Campbell's lot, at the 
upper end of Scotch settlement." In 1802 the road was recorded 
from Le Roy to Batavia; from "Batavia to mouth of Buffalo creek 
near John Palmer's house ;" from " Niagara Falls to Lewiston and 
Fort Niagara." In 1797, there were three path-masters west of Gen- 
esee River : — Christopher Dugan, Joseph Morgan, and Josiah 
Fish. In 1799, there were five : — Jessee Beach, Asa Baker, Peter 
Shaeffer, Elijah Kent, Samuel Hicks. In 1800, there were seven : — 
Jotham Curtis, Garrett Davis, Asa Ransom, Joshua Chamberlin, 
Stephen Peabody, Timothy Madden, Jr., Daniel Curtis. In 1801, 
eleven : — • Nehemiah Weston, Simon King, Solomon Blood, Joseph 
Cummings, Perez Brown, John M' Vean, Daniel Davis, John Pal- 
mer, John M' Naughton, Salmon Scott, Asa Ransom. 

Col. Josiah Fish, the early Supervisor of the wide region of 
Northampton, was from Windham, Vermont. Having in a pre- 
vious visit to the country, purchased a farm at the mouth of Black 
Creek, on the Genesee river, in 1795, with his son Libbeus, he came 
on to commence upon it. Hiring his team work of Mr. ShaefTer, 
he broke up a few acres of the open flats, planted it, put up a log 
hut which he got the Indians to cover with bark ; after which, the 
father and son went down to board with Sprague, who was then in 
charge of the Allan mill, at the Falls ; " and pretty hard board it 
was," says the son : — " We had raccoon for breakfast, dinner and 
supper, with no vegetables ; and upon extra occasions, we had 
cakes fried in raccoon oil." This, with the fever and ague added, 
was a specimen of pioneer life in what is now Rochester. Taking 



418 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

the son up to Mr. Berry's at Canawaugus, where he had a winter's 
sickness, the father returned to Vermont for the family ; and in 
April, the whole were in their new solitary home at Black Creek, 
living without doors, floor, window or chimney. Over half of the 
family were soon prostrated by disease, which continued the great- 
er part of the season. In November, Mr. Williamson having hired 
Col. Fish to take charge of the Allan mill, the family moved down 
to the Falls, and occupied a board shantee for cooking, sleeping in 
rooms partitioned off in the mill, where was not even the luxury 
of glass windows. In this way they wintered and summered. 
The next fall, they put up a three walled log house, against a ledge 
of rocks on the river bank, the site being that now occupied by the 
old red m;!l, near Child's basin ; the ledge of rocks serving for one 
wall of the house ; a fire place and chimney being excavated in the 
rock. They found for their neighbors, Messrs. Hencher and Hos- 
mer, at the mouth of the river ; and soon after they had located at 
the Falls, they were much gratified in the accession of some new 
neighbors — the Atchinsons — at Braddock's Bay. In 1798, Col. 
Fish, being a magistrate for Ontario county, held a court at Lewis- 
ton for the trial of a person who had sold liquor to the soldiers of 
Fort Niagara. He remained in charge of the mill until 1804, when 
he moved back to his farm. In 1807, he sold his farm, and moved 
upon ihe Ridge, near Parma, where he died in 1811. Libbeus 
Fish, formerly of Batavia, now residing at Jackson, Michigan ; 
John P., Chicago, are his sons. 

The Atchinson family were from Tolland county. Conn. It con- 
sisted of Bezaleel Atchinson, his brothers, Asa, Jacob, Sylvester, 
Stephen and John, his two sons, and two daughters. Sylvester 
Atchinson surveyed the town of Naples for Phelps & Gorham. In 
1794, they purchased lands there, some of the brothers remained 
and mad3 improvements, and in 1790 were joined by Bezaleel and 
his family, who remained there but a short time, and in March, of 
that year, went to Braddock's Bay, two brothers accompanying him. 
Although all the Atchinson brothers, six in number, were at the 
Bay as early as 1802, Bezaleel with his family, and two brothers, 
Stephen and John, were the Pioneers. Mr. Williamson having just 
opened the town of Parma for sale, held out some inducements for 
them to commence the settlement at the Bay. They came in by the 
way of Canawagus, crossing the river on the ice, and on arriving 



419 

at the Allan mill, found a hunter by the name of Parks, a wanderer, 
with his dog, gun, and blanket — the Leather Stocking of the Gen- 
esee valley — who they hired as a pilot, — not having even the bene- 
fit of marked trees after they left the river. They were three days 
making the journey from where Rochester now is, to Braddock's 
Bay, making their own road as they went along. With the boards 
from their sled, and some blankets, they. made a shelter, in which 
they lived six weeks ; in which time they built a log house without 
nails, boards or glass. Starting from Naples with four oxen they 
lost one on the road, and two, soon after they arrived at the Bay, 
leaving them but one ox for their team work ; but with this one ox, 
they logged eight aci'es and prepared it for summer crops. They 
used him with a crooked yoke and traces. 

Michael Beach, had the summer previous, come in and made a 
small improvement, on the farm now owned by Judge Castle. 
Within one, two and three years, the Atchinsons were joined in 
their new settlement by George Goodhue, Silas Leonard, Timothy 
Madden and their famjlies. Leonard was from Stockbridge, Mass- 
achusetts ; there came in with him his sons Jonathan and Silas. 
The next year after they emigrated, the father went to the salt 
works at Onondaga to chop cord wood, and was killed by the fall- 
ing of a hmb of a tree. Capt. Jonathan Leonard, upon whom the 
care of the family devolved, who married a daughter of Wm. Hench- 
er, is yet living at the Bay. He says : — " We suffered much from 
sickness. After being in three years we lost all our household ef- 
fects by fire ; we could raise no money for anything except cattle, 
with which we paid for our land ; with a crop of three hundred 
bushels of wheat, we could not raise one shilhng in money. We 
experienced the utmost kindness from Mr. Williamson, and his suc- 
cessors." Silas Madden, of Parma, is a son of the early Pioneer ; 
another son, Alpheus, sickened upon the frontier in the war of 1812, 
and died soon after reaching home. 

Roswell Atchinson, Esq., of Parma, is a surviving son of the 
early Pioneer, Bezaleel Atchinson. He says ; — "I have heard my 
mother say that she lived eight months without seeing a white 
woman. The Indians often come to the Bay to hunt, trap, and pick 
cranberries. Salmon were abundant in Salmon creek ; I have 
known my father to take three barrels in a short time. We had for 
neighbors, the first winter, a colony of beavers. Their dam was on 



420 PHELPS AND GOEHAJl's PUECHASE. 

Salmon creek ; we did not molest tliem ; used to often see them at 
work ; thourrht we would protect them, and let them breed a large 
colony ; but the sprhig freshet came, swept away their dam, they 
went into the Bay where they were caught by a trapper. These 
were all the beavers we saw ; their dams on all the small streams 
however, looked as if they had not been long deserted." " We had 
no schools until we had been in eight 5'ears ; we then built a log 
school house, in which Alpheus Madden taught for two months, 
when the house burned down. I went to Victor, the nearest school. 
Two Methodist circuit preachers — Messrs. Hill and Wood worth, 
found our new settlement after many years ; not until settlement 
had commenced upon the Ridge. They would preach at the house 
of some new settler ; and it was not uncommon for women to go 
on foot five or six miles to hear them." 

The surviving sons of Bezaleel Atchinson, are: — Roswell, of 
Parma, Austin, of Greece, Fuller, a Methodist clergyman at the west. 
Daughters : — Mrs. Willard Cranson, and Mrs. Buel, of Michigan, 
Mrs. Samuel Wyman, of Parma, and Mrs. Sylvanus Willey, of Og- 
den. The father died in 1828, aged 66 years. The brothers who 
came into the country with him : — Sylvester, resides in Oakland 
county, Michigan ; Stephen died a few years since in Illinois, Mrs. 
George Patterson of Parma, is his daughter ; John resides in Parma, 
over 80 years of age; — he commanded a volunteer corps in the 
war of 1812, serving upon the frontier, and at the mouth of the 
Genesee river. Asa, resides in Coldwater, Michigan, and Jacob in 
Illinois ; making four of the six brothers, who came to the Genesee 
country in 1794, still alive ; an instance of longevity, that has few 
parallels. Jacob Atchinson buried a wife and nine children, before 
leaving Parma, and has now a second wife, and a large family. 

In 1790, Phelps and Gorham sold to a company of men in Spring- 
field and Northampton, Mass., 20,000 acres of T. 7, 1, short range, 
upon the " Mill Tract." This embraced all of the present site of 
the city of Rochester, west of the river.* Among the purchasers, 

were Quartus Pomeroy, Justin Ely, Ebenezer Hunt, and 

Breck. By re-sales, previous to 1796, Augustus and Peter B. Por- 
ter, Zadock Granger and Gideon King, had become part owners. 



* There was excepted in the deed of conveyance, the "One Hundred Acre Tiact,'' 
or " Allan Mill Tract," vbich tad previously been granted to Ebenezer Allan. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 421 

The tract was surveyed in 1790, by Frederick Saxton, and sub- 
divided in '07, by Aug. Porter. 

In the winter of 1796, '7, the settlement of the tract commenced, 
by the advent of four families : — Eli Granger, Thomas King, Si- 
mon King, and Elijah Kent. They came in via Canawaugus, and 
down the river, locating a short distance above what was afterwards 
King's, now Handford's Landing. They had no shelter but their 
covered sleighs, until they erected log huts. The next year they 
were joined by Bradford and Moses King, Dr. Stone and Gra- 
ham ; and in 1798, four brothers, Ebenezer, Daniel, Abel and Asa 
Rowe, settled in the neighborhood. These new settlers began to 
make farms, l)ut encountered sickness and death enough to have dis- 
couraged the less resolute. Several of the heads of families died 
in the first few years. 

Asa Rowe died soon after coming in, as did Graham, and 

the father of the brothers Kings, and Elijah Kent. When Mr. 
Rowe died, the other brothers were sick and unable to go for help 
to lay him out and bury him, until he had lain 24 hours. Recover- 
ing from their sickness, the surviving brothers left the country, and 
returned to Oneida county. In a few years however, Daniel and 
Abel returned, bringing with them another brother, Frederick, and 
settled on the Ridge Road. 

The first boards that the new settlers obtained, was by repairing 
the old Allan saw mill at the Falls, and in a few years Nathaniel 
Jones, built a rude saw mill on the small stream, that puts in near 
Hanford's Landing. 

Dr. Zacheus Colby, and Dr. Sylvester Atchinson, were early 
physicians, practicing in the Kings' settlement. 

In 1799, Eli Granger and Abner Migells, built a schooner at 
King's Landing, the first merchant vessel built by Americans on 
Lake Ontario, and none had been previously built by Americans on 
the Upper Lakes. 



Township 13, range 7, was the fifth sale made by Phelps & Gor- 
ham. In Mr. Phelp's memorandum, it is entered as sold to " Gen. 
Hvde and others." The associates of Gen. Hyde, who was a resi- 
dent of Lenox, Mass., were his townsmen. Prosper Polly, Enos 
Ston;', Jo!) Gilbert, Joseph Chaplin, and it is presumed, John Lusk, 



422 PHELPS AND GOEHAMS PUEOHASE. 

of Berkshire, as fifteen hundred acres of the township near the head 
of Irondequoit Bay, was set off to him, while -the surv^ey of the 
township into farm lots was progressing. Mr. Lusk was the pio- 
neer in improvement and settlement, and in fact bore that relation 
to all of what is now Monroe county, having even preceded the 
Shaeffers several months. With his son Stephen, then fifteen years 
old, and Seely Peet, a hired man, he came to the new region early 
in the summer of 1789. Arriving at Schenectady, he embarked 
with a small stock of provisions, in a batteau, the son and hired 
man coming by land, and driving some cattle. The son, Stephen 
Lusk, of Pittsford, who still survives, says he remembers very well, 
that upon the present site of Utica, there was only an opening of 
about half an acre in the forest — and that the pioneer there, John 
Post, was just finishing his log cabin. They came upon the Indian 
trail, via Skaneatelas, Onondaga Hollow, and from there to Cayuga 
Lake had little more than spotted trees as a guide. They crossed 
Cayuga Lake on a raft, swimming their cattle- The father, sorrand 
hired man, re-united at Canandaigua, and constructing an ox-sled, 
made their own road to their location in Brighton. Erecting a log 
cabin, they cleared twelve acres and sowed it to wheat, procuring 
their wheat of Ebenezer Allan, upon the Shaeffer farm, by cutting 
a w^oods road to the mouth of Red creek, to which point they trans- 
ported it in a canoe. While they were clearing the land and sowing 
their wheat, they saw none of their own race, but the surveyors of 
the township. Indians often came from Canada in canoes to the 
Bay, on their way to Canandaigua. The whole three had the ague 
and fever, which obliged them to suspend labor for a considerable 
period. They returned to Massachusetts in the fall. 

In the spring of 1790, Mr. Lusk brought out his family, coming 
all the way from Schenectady to the head of Irondequoit Bay by 
water, the sons Stephen and Erastus coming by land with stock in 
company with Enos Stone and others. Mr. Shaeffer and his brother, 
being bachelors, the family of John Lusk may be said to be the first 
family located upon all the territory now embraced in Monroe county, 
other than the temporary residents, refugees from the border wars, 
Allan and Walker. The first few years they had to contend v/ith all 
the usual privations of extreme backwoods life, and to which was 
added disease and harrassing Indian alarms. The refugee Walker 
of whom Mr. Hencher speaks, living in his solitary hut at the mouth 



PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 423 

of the River, was still in the British and Indian interests — made 
frequent visits to Niagara ; and returning would alarm the few 
settlers in the backwoods by representing that they were to be 
attacked by the Indians. He was not pleased with his new neigh- 
bors ; and when they crowded upon him, he sought more congenial 
associations, in Canada.* 

Mr. Lusk died in 1814, aged 66 years. Besides the present 
Stephen Lusk, his sons were Erastus, Norman, John and ^aron. 
Stephen Lusk, whose wife as will have been observed, is the daughter 
of William Hencher, is 76 years of age. Heman and Dennis Lusk 
of Pittsford, Henry Lusk of Laporte. Indiana, are his sons; Mrs. 
Thomas Wilcox of Mendon, is his daughter. 

Orange Stone, a son of one of the original proprietors of the 
township, with his family, Joel Scudder and family, and Chauncey 
and Calvin Hyde, followed Mr. Lusk in a few weeks ; and about 
the same time Timothy Allyn, came on and occupied abne, a log 
cabin he erected on a tract of 500 acres on the stream that took his 
name, near the termination of the Brighton plank road. Spending a 
summer in the wilderness he got discouraged, sold out and vv'ent to 
Geneva, where he was a prominent and useful citizen in earlv years. 
He had borne the commission of Captain in the war of the Revolution. 
He finally returned to Massachusetts, where he died at the advanced 
age of 90 years. He was a lineal descendant of Robert Allyn, who 
with Robert Winthrop and James Avery, was a pioneer emigrant 
at New Lo:^.don, Conn.; F. U. Sheffield, of Palmyra, is a nephew of 
the early Pioneer of the Genesee country. 

Orange Stone located on the now Pittsford road, a little east of 
Brighton village, near the "rock and tree." Messrs. Bacon, Adams, 
and Fellows, of Bloomfield, Enos Stone, Stephen Lusk and others, 
who had emigrated, or intended to do so, in 1790, clubbed together, 
and started for the new region a drove of oxen, cows, and hogs. 
Enos Stone, Jr. the son of one of the proprietors named above, 
Stephen Lusk. Jacob Lobdell, one of the Adams, were of the drivers. 
After leaving Utica, they travelled about 25 miles per day, camping 



* He did not leave however until he had had pretty distinct intimations that hig 
boasts of exjiloits in the border Avars — of murder and rapine — would not be toleratecL 
He was at Canaudaigua, and in the hearing of Horatio Jones was boasting of his ex- 
ploits with Indian allies, when Mr. Jones becoming exasperated attacked him with 
' an axe, wounded him, and would have taken his life if his blows had not been arrested 
by others. He soon after went to Canada. 



424 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 

each night ; arriving at Cayuga Lake they crossed their stock in 
two Durham Boats — the work of crossing consuming four days. 
The provisions of the party failed them, and they were from Thurs- 
day morning until Sunday night without food. Arriving at Geneva, 
nearly famished, their wants were supplied. 

Unless this party had been preceded a fevi^ days by the Wads- 
worths, their stock was the first brought west of the Seneca Lake. 
They had among the rest, a few sheep that went to Bloomfield. In 
addition to Orange Stone, Chauncey Hyde, a son of another of the 
proprietors came on in 1790, locating upon the farm now occupied 
by Col. Gould. He remained but one season ; sickness discouraged 
him. He went upon some lands of his father, in Broome county. 
The elder Enos Stone did not emigrate to Brighton until 1816, 
where he died a few months after his arrival. Orange Stone, who 
for many years occupied one of the western outposts of civilization, 
keeping almost from his first arrival, a house of entertainment ; a 
home for the young men who were settling about him, and a stop- 
ping place for the occasional hunter, Indian trader, and traveler, 
died in 1842, aged 73 years. His eldest son, Orange, was drowned 
at Conneaut, Ohio, by stepping from the plank of a steamboat in the 
night. The only surviving son, Enos Stone, is now in California; 
several daughters reside in Michigan. 

Col. Enos Stone continued to reside in Lenox, making frequent 
visits to the new purchase, and residing occasionally vvith his bro- 
ther. Orange, until 1810, when he became a pioneer settler of the 
city of Rochester, his original farm embracing all of the most densely 
populated portion of the city east of the river.. He still survives, 
at the age of 76 years. His wife, who was the daughter of Bryabt 
Stoddard, of Litchfield, Conn., died in 1850, aged 73 years. James 
S. Stone, (born in May, 1810, the first born on the site of the city 
of Rochester,) of Greece, is the only survivor of five sons ; Mrs. 
"vVm. C. Storrs, of Rochester, and Mrs. George Wales, are sur- 
viving daughters ; and a third, unmarried daughter, resides with her 
father. With a memory of early events unimpaired. Col. Stone has 
furnished the author with many interesting reminiscences, the ear- 
liest of which, are inserted here, and the later ones reserved for 
that portion of the work, having more especial reference to Monroe 
county. I 



PHELPS AND GOEHA]m's PURCHASE. 425 



REMINISCENCES OF ENOS STONE. 



In an early year, I was stopping -with my brother Orange. Chauncey 
Hyde and myself were out bunting cattle. We saw a smoke rising at the 
Irondequoit Landing, and went down to it. We found that it proceeded from 
an Indian camp; as we ap})roached it, two Indians rose up from a couch, one 
of which, especially, attracted our attention. His camp equip}>age we thought 
rather extraordinary for an Indian; he was well dressed — jtartly as a white 
man, and partly as an Indian ; bid us good morning with great civility, and 
displaying a gold watch and trimmings, observed that being wearied he had 
over sle]>t. He soon announced himself as Joseph Brant, on his way from 
Burlington Ba}^ to Canandaigua. Having arrived in a boat he had sent In- 
dian runners to Caiiandaigua for horses, and was awaiting their return. He 
accepted our invitation and came up with us to my brother's house. His 
familiar conversation, and gentlemanly manners, soon convinced us that he 
W'as not the savage we had conceived him to be, from accounts we had heard 
and read of him, in connection with the Boi'der Vv^ars. He quieted our ap- 
prehensions of any farther Indian troubles, by assuring us, that as the Senecas 
had sold their lands to the whites, the bargain should be earned out in good 
faith, and the new settlements should not be molested. He manifested much 
interest in all that was going on in this region, and inquired when new- settle- 
ments were commencing. The visit gave us great ]ileasure, and quieted oui- 
fears. In pei'son, Joseph Brant bore a close resemblance to (jen. Brady, of 
the U. S. army. 

I knew an early settler of Irondequoit, ^vho used to kill, dress, and eat 
skunks ; he said their meat was line flavored, free from any oifensive odor.* 

The pihicipal colony of the rattle snakes, was in bank of )'ivei', below the 
Lower Falls, at a place we used to call " Rattle Snake Point;" and there was 
also a large colony at Allans creek, near the end of the Brighton jilankroai. 
I think they grow blind about the time of returning to their dens, in August 
and September, I have killed them on their return, with films on their eyes. 
Their oil was held in great estimation by the early settlers. Zebulon Norton, 
of Noi'ton's mills, w^as a kind of backwoods' doctor, and often came to this 
region for the oil and the gall of the rattle-snake. The oil was used for stiff 
jc»ints and bruises ; the gall for fevers, in the form of a pill, made up with 
chalk. 

Fish were abundant, and a great help to the eaily settlers, A structure 
similar to an eel wire was placed in the Ii'ondequoit, below the Falls, The 
rack was made of tamarack poles, I have known ten bands of fine fat 
salmon taken there in one night The river afforded a plenty of black aixl 
stiiped bass, and the Bay pickerel and pike, I never knew of the salmon 
ascending the Genesee river, but one season, Allans creek in Brighton, 
afforded abundance of trout. The geese and ducks were so plenty in Brad- 
dock's Bay, that bushels of their eggs could sometimes be picked up in the 
marshes, 

* Some of the early suiTeyors of Wisconsin confirm this good opinion of the flesh 
of the skunk. 

27 



426 PHELPS AND G0RHAM8 PURCHASE. 

In one of the early years, I can-ied sc>me grain to the Allan mill, to o-et 
ground for my brother Orange, and had to remain over night. Allan was 
there, in a spree or carousal. To make a feast, he had sent Indians into the 
woods, to shoot hogs that had gone wild, and he furnished the whiskey. 
There were many Indians collected. It was a high time, and the chief of 
the entertainment was enjoying it in great glee. Tired of the carousal, he re- 
tired to a couch, where a squaw and a white wife awaited his coming. 

The hogs that we brought here in 1790 strayed off, and they and their pro- 
geny became wild, we had to either shoot or hunt them with dogs. The 
boai-s and old sows have been seen often, \ictors in a conflict with bears. A 
boar was caught and penned. He refused food, and would not tame. When 
persons approached the pen, he Avould froth at tbe mouth; occasionally strike 
his long tushes into the logs of his pen, tearing out and champing thesphnters. 



OLIVER CULVER. 



He is a native of Orwell, Vermont. In March, 1796, when he 
was 19 years old he left home in company with Samuel Spaflbrd, 
and came on foot to the Genesee country, first stopping a short time 
at Jonathan Smith's in Farmington, where they hired out to make 
sap troughs. Going to Irondequoit Landing, he found the only 
occupant there, Asa Dunbar, a malatto, with a family. Remaining 
at the Landing about six weeks, a large company, consisting of the 
proprietors of the then newly purchased Connecticut lands in Ohio, 
their surveyors, and two families, in five boats, came up the Lake 
on their way to commence survey and settlement. In pursuance of 
a previous agreement, the young men. Culver and Spafford, joined 
the expedition. Landing at Queenston, taking their batteaux over 
the portage, the expedition went up Niagara River and coasted along 
the south shore of Lake Erie, finding no white inhabitant after they 
left the mouth of Buffalo creek — where there was one soHtary 
family until they reached Erie, where they found Col. Seth Reed, 
Gunn, who had his family with him, stopped at Conneaut, be- 
coming the first settlers there. Proceeding to the mouth of the 
Cuyahoga, the party landed, on the site of the present city of Cleve- 
land, and erected a log dwelling house and store house. Stiles, one 
of the party who had taken his wife along, built for himself a house, 
and became the Pioneer settler at that point.* 

* A son of his bom the next winter was the firstborn of white parents, on the Re- 
serve. Mrs. Stiles at the period of partuiition had none other of her oex than native 
equaws, to attend her. 



PHELPS AND GORHAM's PTJECHASE. 427 

The party all returned to New England in the fall. In the follow- 
ing spring, Messrs. Culver and Spaflord came on again to Ironde- 
quoit, hunted, trapped, bought furs, until the surveyors again arrived* 
and they again embarked in their service. The principal of the 
party on this second expedition, was Seth Pease, a brother-in-law 
of Gideon Granger. The expedition consisted of about 60 persons. 
In the summer — 1797 — they cleared and planted six acres, which 
are now in the centre of the city of Cleveland. In 1798, Mr. 
Culver was in the employ of the contractors who had taken the job 
of the New Connecticut company to cut out the road from the Penn- 
sylvania line, across their purchase. Remaining the next year in 
Vermont, in 1800 Mr. Culver came out and purchased the farm 
where he now resides ; making his home at Major Orange Stone's, 
and going to his place through the woods by marked trees, he cleared 
seven acres and sowed it to wheat the first season ; realizing a 
good crop. Fearing a defective title, he abandoned his farm, and 
was employed by Augustus Griswold for the next three years, at 
Irondequoit Landing, in superintending an Ashery, the first estab- 
lished in all this region. It worked up the ashes and black salts of 
the new settlers for a great distance around it ; shipping at the 
early period, in 1803, 108 barrels of pearl ash to Montreal. Ashes 
being a shilling per bushel, enabled the settlers, generally destitute 
of money, to get some store trade. In 1804, obtaining a small stock 
of goods at the east, by purchase, and a much larger stock of Tryon 
and Adams, at Irondequoit upon commission, Mr. Culver went to 
Cleveland and opened a store, principally for Indian trade, where 
he had been preceded only by one trader, with a small stock. He 
bought furs of the Indians, and opening a barter trade with the 
settlements in Pennsylvania, his customers brought him upon pack 
horses, whiskey and cider brandy, in kegs, butter, cheese and honey. 
He sold them salt at $3,00 per bushel. Extending a barter trade to 
Detroit, he obtained there, apples and white fish. Disposing of his 
goods, he returned, had title to his farm made good, married the 
daughter of John Ray of Pittsford, and became a permanent resi- 
dent of Brighton, as early as 1805. 

In 1811, Mr. Culver built the schooner Clarissa, on the Roswell 
Hart farm in Brighton, and drew it to the Bay, with twenty six 
yoke of oxen ; and after that he built three other schooners, and put 
them upon the Lake. He was one of the contractors for building 



428 

the combined locks at Lockport, on the original construction of 
the canal. In 1822, he built at Brighton, a packet boat, the first 
boat built as far west as there, and the fourth packet that was built on 
the canal. These are but a part of the eiiterprises of his active 
and useful life. He is now 72 years old, moving about and super- 
intending a large estate, neither his physical or mental constitution 
but little impaired. He has buried two sons ; his only daughter is 
Mrs. L. D. Ely of Brighton. 



REMINISCENCES OF OLIVER CULVER. 



On the shore of Lake Ontario, on a high bluft' near Irondequoit Bay, in 
1*796, tlie bank caved off, and imtonibed a large quantity of human bones, 
of a large size. The arm and leg bones, u])on comparison, were much 
larger than tho.se of our own race. 

In 1797 I trapped two young beaver, at Brush creek, above Braddock's 
B '.y. I saw one of their lodges. It vva.s about the size and shajie of a hay 
cock ; carried up with brush, as a gi'ound work, covered Avith I'ushes, and pl>is- 
tered witli clay. I have seen the stumps of trees they had gnawed down, that 
measured one foot across. They select the sites of their dams Viith something 
like human intelligence. 

At one period, ])retty much all the Lake business of this region, was trans- 
acted at Irondequoit Landing. The first fiour was shij)ped there that went to 
Montreal. It Avas not until along about 181-3, that we abandoned the idea 
that it would be the great commercial point of this region. 

In 1805, '6, myself, Orange Stone, George Dailey, Samuel Spafford, and 
Miles Northu]), with the help of $50 appropriated from the town of North- 
field, cut out the i-oaJ, two rods wide, from Orange Stone's to the river, four 
miles. 

When I first came to Irondequoit, in excavating the earth to build a store 
house, we found a large quantity of lead balls and flint-*. On a knoll, on the 
bank of the creek, tliere were the remains of a batteiy.* 

In 1802 there Mas no school nearer tlian Pittsford. We clubbed to- 
gether, built a log school house, and hired a young man by the name of 
Turner, who was clerk in Tryon & Adams' store, to open a school. I wanted 
to go to school, and for my part, I got logs to a saw mill, and furnished the 
roof boards. Our first ])hysician was John Ray, of Pittsford; our first mer- 
chant at Brigliton, Ira West, who renu>ved to Rochester. 

Amos Sjiatford, of Orwell, Veririont, the father of Samuel Spaftbrd, who 
came to the Genesee country with me, was one of the early surveyors of the 
Reserve, and one of the founders of S3ttlement at Cleveland. The U. S. 

* The battery, undoubtedly, that La Hontan says De NonviUe erected at the Land- 
ing. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PTJECHASE. 429 

government granted bim a mile and a half square of land, at Maumee, to 
which place he removed, and where his descendants now reside. Samuel 
Spafford settled at Brighton, and made first improvements on the Blossom 
fai'm, emigrating to Maumee. 

Amos Spafford being the first mail contractor at Cleveland, in 1805, his 
carrier being taken sick, I took the mail on' my back, and carried it to Huron, 
in four hours, traveling on the ice with skates. 

Timothy Allen sold his five hundred acres of land, in Brighton, to John 
and Solonion Hatch. In company with them, I built a saw mill on Allan's 
Creek, in 1806. They removed to Genesee county.* 



In 179S, Judge John Tryon, of Lebanon Springs, became through 
a brother who had failed to make the payments, the ovv^ner of a 
tract of land on the Irondequoit, in Brighton, three miles above the 
Bay. His brother had previously laid out a village, but had made 
no progress with it. Judge Tryon built a store and store house, 
and in the spring of '99, opened a store in the name of Tryon & 
Adams. The locality assumed the name of " Tryon's Town." The 
agent of the proprietors, Augustus Griswold, first came on with 
five sleigh loads of goods, and after that, in the fall, Capt. Oliver 
Grace came with a boat load from Schenectady, the freight costing 
$3 00 per. 112 lbs. Asa Dayton soon opened a tavern, Stephen 
Lusk started the tanning and shoe making business, and besides 
these was Asa Dunbar, a mulatto, and John Boyd, — four families 
in all. In 1800, Henry Ward, the present worthy citizen and Post 
Master, of Penfield, then 18 years of age, came on and became a 
clerk in the Tryon &, Adams store. At that period, much of the 
business of this pioneer store, the first west of Canandaigua, con-. 
sisted of barter, for furs, bear and deer skins, with the Seneca In- 
dians, and such white men as were hunters and trappers. In 1801, 
Silas Losea settled in the place, and enabled " Tryon Town," alias 
the " city of Tryon," to glory in the addition of a blacksmith's 
shop. An ashery and ' distillery was added to the store, soon after. 
In the earliest years, the store commanded a wide range of custom- 
ers. There are names upon its old books, of the early settlers of 
all the western towns of Ontario and Wayne, northern towns of 



* Javvis M. and Hiram F. Hatch, attorneys in Rochester, are the sons of the early 
pioneer, John Hatch. The father and brother were from Madison county. John Hatch 
removed from Brigthon to Barre, Orleans county, and subsenuently to Elba, near Bata- 
via, wliere his widow now resides. 



430 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

Livingston, and even a solitary settler of Orleans county, at the 
mouth of Oak Orchard creek, was a regular customer. The '• city" 
was governed by civil laws of its own enacting. What has since 
been called a " Lynch Coiu't " was established, and several trials 
and convictions were had. 

The business of the place declining, shipping business going to the 
mouth of Genesee river, and rival stores springing up in other local- 
ities, in 1810 Mr. Griswold broke up the store, and went to Tren- 
ton, Oneida county. In 1818 the old store house was demolished, 
and there now remains scarcely a vestige of the once " city of 
Tryon." 

Gen. Jonathan Fassett, of Vermont was the original purchaser 
from Phelps and Gorham, of T. 13, R. 4, now Penfield, and south 
part of Webster; he attempted its settlement in '91 or '2. He 

was accompanied by Caleb Hopkins, his son Jonathan Fassett, 

Maybee, and some others. Discouraged by sickness, and other 
endurances of the wilderness, Gen. Fassett abandoned the enterprise, 
and returned to Vermont ; though Messrs. Hopkins and Maybee 
remained in the country. Mr. Hopkins was the afterwards Col. 
Hopkins, of Pittsford, and Mr. Maybee was the father- of John and 
James Maybee, who were pioneer settlers of Royalton, Niagara 
county, and of Suffrenus Maybee, a pioneer settler at Buffalo, and 
the mouth of Cattaraugus creek ; a daughter was the wife of Orange 
Stone, another of Caleb Hopkins, another of Griffin, of Pitts- 
ford. Dr. Fassett, of Lockport, and a brother of his in Rochester, 
are grand-sons of Gen. Fassett. 

Mr. Maybee was from the Mohawk. He came by water to 
Swift's Landing at Palmyra, there mounted his batteaux upon 
wheels, and cut his own road from a short distance west of Palmyra 
to Penfield. 

Gen. Fassett located at the old Indian Landing, on the east side 
of the Bay, about two miles below the present village of Penfield. 
He had a plat surveyed there for a town, but nothing farther was 
done. He soon sold his interest in Penfield to Gen. Silas Pepoon, 
who sold it to Samuel P. Lloyd, from whom, in consequence of some 
liabilities incurred, it went into the hands of Daniel Penfield. 

DC7^ Farther reminiscences of Penfield will be added in another 
connection. 

What is now Pittsford, being a portion of a township at the 



PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 431 

northern termination of the 5th range, 13,296 acres was purchased 
by an association, who were represented in the transaction by "Stone 
and Dodge." Settlement commenced there before the close of 
1789. The pioneers were, Israel Stone and Simon Stone, Silas 
Nye, Joseph Farr, and at the same time, or soon after, other heads 
of families came in : — Thomas Cleland, Josiah Giminson, Alex- 
ander Dunn, and David Davis. 

William Walker, the local agent of Phelps & Gorham, purchased 
T. 12, R. 4, now the town of Perinton. In the summer of 1799 his 
brother Caleb erected a log cabin, and moved into the township, 
taking with him Glover Perrin, with his wife. Perrin went first in 
the capacity of a hired man, but after the death of Caleb Walker, 
had some interest in the purchase. The pioneers had no children, 
and lived alone in the woods for several years, after which they 
moved to Pittsford. DC7^ For Mendon, see Monroe county. 



VICTOR. 



[Omitted in its appropriate place.] 

Enos Boughton, of Stockbridge, Mass., and his brother Jared, 
had visited this region in 1788. Enos had engaged as a clerk of 
William Walker, the agent of Mr. Phelps, and as soon as sales com- 
menced, purchased the town of Victor, for twenty cents per acre. 
In the spring of 1799, the two brothers, Horatio Jones, a brother- 
in-law, who was a surveyor, and several hired hands, went upon 
what was afterwards called Boughton Hill, erected a log cabin, 
sowed a patch of buckwheat, (the first of that crop in the Genesee 
country,) surveyed the township, and after sowing three acres of 
wheat, the whole party returned to Massachusetts, except Jacob 
Lobdell, who remained " solitary and alone," to take care of the 
premises, and winter fourteen head of cattle upon wild grass, that 
had been cut upon the Indian Meadow, on what is now known as the 
Griswold place. In February, 1790, Jared Boughton started from 
Stockbridge, with his wife and infant daughter, and made the long 

Note.— Mr, Lobdell remained in the town, and became an enteq)rising and promi- 
nent citizen ; was well known as an early contractor upon the Erie Canal. His many 
kind acts in pioneer times, are weU remembered. He died in 1848, aged 78 years. 
His sons are: — Levi and Jacob L., of Victor, George, of Hennepin, lUinois, Wallace, 
of Calhoun co., Michigan ; his daughters, Mrs. Abraham and Mrs. Rufus Humphrey, 
of Victor, and Mrs. Cleveland, of Steuben Illinois. 



432 

winter, and wood's journey to their new home ; a pretty full ac- 
count of which is given in History of Holland Purchase. Their 
travelling companions were the family of Col. Seth Reed, who were 
coming on to join him at Geneva. Between Col. Danforth's at 
Onondaga Hollow, and Cayuga Lake, the whole party, fourteen in 
number, cleared away the snow, and made a night camp of hem- 
lock boughs. They were ferried acro.«;s the outlet of Seneca Lake, 
by Solomon Earle ; after parting with the Reed family, they arrived 
at Flint creek — there was no bridge — had to fall trees to get their 
goods over, and afterwards tow the horses and sleigh across with 
ropes. Between Flint creek and Canandaigua, they found one 
small opening, and an unoccupied cabin. They arrived in Victor, 
March 7th, one week after the Adams family had arrived in Bloom- 
field. The stock of provisions they brought in, lasted with the help 
of the buckwheat that had been harvested the previous fall, until 
their wheat harvest. The early wheat crop was thrashed upon a 
floor made of split bass wood, and cleaned with an old fashioned 
corn fan, the rim of which was fabricated from an oak tree, and 
the bottom from a pine board, which had been a part of their sleigh 
box. 

After Enos Boughton had purchased Victor, his father took an 
interest with him, selling his farm in Stockbridge, and coming into 
the new region. He died in Aug. 1798. His four sons were Enos, 
Jared, Seymour and Hezekiah. Enos, who was introduced to Mr. 
Clinton in 1825, as the man who built the first stick chimney, first 
framed barn, and planted the first orchard west of Seneca Lake, 
he died in Lockport, in 182G, where he had made an early pur- 
chase of a large portion of the present village site. Jared is yet 
living, at the age of 84 years. In 1848, the author saw him in the 
full possession of his faculties, and he was afterwards indebted to 
him for pioneer reminiscences, in a hand writing that showed little 
of the tremor of age, and exhibited a distinct and intelligent recol- 
lection of early events. The young wife, who with a child four 
months old, had cooked frugal meals by winter camp fires, and en- 
dured the most rugged features of pioneer life, was also alive in 
1848; "hale and hearty," the mother of 12 children. She died in 
1849. The living sons, in 1848, were : — Selleck, an Attorney in 
Rochester, Frederick, of Pittsford, [the first white child born in 
Victor.] Jared H., on old homestead in Victor ; EnoS; of E. Bloom- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 433 

field ; daughters, Mrs. Dr. A. G. Smith, New York, Mrs. Bennett 
Lewis, of Green county, Ohio, Mrs. Mortimer Buel, of Geneseo. 
Hezekiah died as early as 1793 ; was the father of the late Col. 
Claudius Victor Boughton, after whom the town was named in 
1813, as a mark of esteem for his gallant services upon the Niagara 
frontier, to which the legislature of this State added the presenta- 
tion of a sword. Reuben H. Boughton, of Lewiston, is a son of his. 
Another son of Hezekiah, is George H. Boughton, Esq., of Lock- 
port. Col. Seymour Boughton was killed at the battle of Black 
Rock, in the war of 1812. 

Jared Boughton took the buckwheat and got it ground at Capt. 
Ganson's rude mill at Avon. His next milling expedition, (after 
wheat harvest.) was with a double ox team, to the Allan mill at 
Genesee Falls. Arriving within four miles of the River, (at Orange 
Stone's,) he came to the end of the road ; any direct route to the 
River was through a dense forest, and low wet grounds ; which 
obliged him to go around, and work his way over the range of hills 
east of Mount Hope. Arrived at the River, he belled his oxen and 
turned them into the woods, carryinT; his grain across and down 
the river to the mill. As winter approached, the infant settlement 
was without salt. It was decided to send a boat to Salt Point. In 
November, Jared and Seymour Boughton. and John Barnes, went 
to Swift's Landing, (Palmyra,) took a Schenectady boat, and pro- 
ceeded on their voyage. The Stansells, at Lyons, were the only 
white inhabitants on the whole route. Below the junction of the 
Ganargwa creek, and Canandaigua out-let, they came to a raft of 
flood- wood, 16 rods in extent. To pass it they were obliged to haul 
their boat out of the water, up a steep ascent, and move it on rollers 
to a point below the raft. Procuring twelve barrels of salt, the 
party starting on their homeward voyage, encountered a snow 
storm and ice when they got into the Seneca river. They made 
slow progress, on one occasion being obliged to wade into the ice 
and water to lift their boat from stones upon which it had struck. 
At the raft on Clyde River, they had again to transport their boat 
overland, with the addition of their twelve barrels of salt. On 
account of low water, they were obliged to leave their boat and 
carwo at the Lyon's Landing. Going through the woods to Farm- 
ington, following township lines, they returned with six yoke of 
oxen via. Palmyra, and partly upon wagons, and partly upon sleds, 



434 PHELPS AND GOEHAJM's PUECHASE. 

making their roads mostly as they went along, they succeeded in 
getting the first cargo of salt to Victor. 

Levi Boughton, an uncle of Jared and Enos, accompanied Jared 
and Jacob Lobdell in their primitive advent — moved his family in 
the next year. He died in 1828, aged 78 years. His sons were, 
Nathaniel, of Bloomfield, John B., of Ohio, Thomas Morris, of 
Rochester, Horace B. of Victor. Thomas M. is the only surviving 
son. Daughters became the wives of Jacob Lobdell, Aaron Tay- 
lor, an early settler on the Ridge Road, near Molyneux's Corners, 
Niagara county, Zera Brooks, John Brace, and Philemus Smith, of 
Victor. 

Rufus Dryer from Stockbridge, Mass., came to Victor with some 
portion of the Boughton family, and in 1799, accompanied Enos 
and Jared in their lumbering expedition to Georgia, where he re- 
mained with them for several years. Residing after that in Madi- 
son county, he became a permanent resident of Victor in 1806. 
He was the founder of the well known Dryer stand in Victor, and 
had opened it and kept it a year before his death in 1820. His son, 
Wm. C. Dryer, succeeded him, kept the stand for many years, and 
retired to a fine farm, upon which he and his brother Truman now 
reside. 

DO^ For additional reminiscences of Victor, see " Phelps and 
Gorham's Purchase — Ontario." 



[The following omissions in reminiscences of West Bloomfield, page 198 ; and in 
reminiscences of Bristol, page 208, ai'e supplied.] 

Ezra Marvin was one of the associates in the purchase of town- 
ship, now West Bloomfield ; he never emigrated ; his son, Jasper 
P. Marvin, became a resident and died there, in early years. The 
surviving sons of Robert Taft, are Jessee, Robert, Bezaleel, and 
Chapin Taft, all of Bloomfield ; daughters, Mrs. Peck, of Bloomfield, 
Mrs. Leach, of Lima. Ebenezer Curtiss died in 1812 ; Mrs. Par 
ker, of Lima, is his daughter. Jasper P. Sears died in early years. 
Other prominent early settlers : — Marvin Gates, a brother of Dan- 
iel, mentioned in connection with East Bloomfield ; Jacob Smith, 
built a saw mill and grist mill, in early years, on the Honeoye, — 
" Smith's Mills" — died many years since ; Deacon Samuel Handy, 
died 10 or 15 years since, was the father of Russel Handy, of Alle- 



PHELPS AND GORHAlVl's PUECHASE. 435 

gany; Peter W. Handy, of Rochester, Mrs, Stephen Bates, and 
Mrs. Charles Wilbur, (the early pioneer in Le Roy and Lockport .) 
Bayze Baker, still surviving, at the age of 80 years ; Nathaniel Eg- 
gleston, an early landlord, father of Mrs. William Parsons, of Lock- 
port ; Palmer and Clark Peck, came in as early as 1790. Clark 
was an early Supervisor of the old town of Bloomfield, died in 1825 ; 
Jasper Peck, of Bloomfield, is a son of his, Mrs. Page, of Bloomfield, 
a daughter ; his sons, Joseph and Ab^ reside in Michigan ; the 
mother is still Uvingi 

John Dixon, was a native of Keene, N. H., a graduate of Mid- 
dlebury College, studied law in Milton, near Ballston, Saratoga 
county; was admitted to practice in 1812, and in 1813 located in 
West Bloomfield, where he has since resided, and now resides, 
mingling professional duties with the successful pursuits of agricul- 
ture, a useful citizen, and a much respected member of the bar of 
Ontario, He was a member of the State Legislature, in ] 829, '30, 
and of Congress, for two terms, at a later period ; is now 67 
years of age. 

The sons of Gamaliel Wilder, the earliest Pioneer of Bristol, 
were : — Daniel, David, Joseph, Asa, Jonas ; daughters became the 
wives of Elisha Pariish, Theophilus Allen, Nathan Hatch, and 

Hoag. Daniel became the owner of the Indian orchard in 

Bristol, that had escaped the devastation of Sullivan. * 

Ephraim Wilder, coming in soon after Gamaliel, settled at first 
in South Bristol, but afterwards removed to T. 9, 4th Range. He 
died in 1822. His surviving sons are, Timothy, John, and Russell 
Wilder, of Bristol ; daughters became the wives of George Gooding, 
Henry Pitts and John Hatch. 

In Gen. Hall's census of 1790, Aaron Rice (other than the early 
settler at Avon, as the author concludes,) is named as the head of a 
family in South Bristol. He removed to Genesee county, and 
from thence to the west in early years. His daughters became the 



* It contained both apples and peaches, both in greater quantity than in any other 
of the Indian orchards that were preserved. A ride to "Wilder's," apple and peach 
eating, and cider drinking, on horseback, on ox sleds and horse sleighs, from the scat- 
tered nevr settlements, was no uncommon occurrence. The possession of an old Indian 
orchard near Geneva, and some cleared lands around it, was deemed of so much con- 
sequence, that the original Massachusetts pre-emption line was varied in order to em- 
brace it. South Bristol, hilly and broken as it is known to be, Could once have been 
exchanged for East Bloomfield, but the bargain was declined on account of the " Indian 
orchard." 



436 PHELPS ATH) OORH aim's PURCHASE. 

wives of David Wilder, Simeon Crosby, and Randall Chapman. 
Aaron Spencer was also the head of a family in South Bristol, in 
1790, but of him the author has no account. 

The Coddings, whose advent is named, incidentally, in connection 
with the Pitts family, were three brothers: — John, George, and 
Faunce, [called erroneously " Fauner," in another 'connection.] 
The surviving sons of John Codding are, John, George, Benjamin, 
Warren, of Coddingsville^ Medina county, Ohio : and Robert F., 
of Summit county, Ohio. Daughters became the wives of Timo- 
thy Wilder, Isaac Van Fossen, and John Wilder. The sons of 
Faunce Codding are, Faunce and Stephen A., of Bristol ; George 
T. and Ichabod, of Lockport, Illinois, where their mother and sister, 
Mrs. Hale S. Mason, reside. George Codding died childless. Geo. 
Codding, sen., the father of the three brothers, joined his sons in 
early years. His other children were, Burt Codding, Mrs. Benj. 
Goss, Mrs. Zenas Briggs, Mrs. Elizur Hills, and Mrs. Wm. T. Codd- 
ing, who still survives, a resident of Bristol. M. O. Wilder, Esq., 
of Canandaigua, is one of the numerous descendants of this early 
and Tjrominent Pioneer family, 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE MORRIS TREATY AT " BIO TREE." CESSION OF THE TERRITORY 

WEST OF PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE, WHICH BECAME 
morris' RESERVE AND HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



Although Mr. Morris had acquired the pre-emptive right of 
Massachusetts to all the territory in this State west of Phelps and 
Gorham's Purchase — what was afterwards designated as Morris' 
Reserve and the Holland Purchase — as early as May, 1791, the 
native right to the soil was not extinguished until 1797. Soon af- 
ter he purchased of Massachusetts, in 1792 and '3, he sold to the 
Holland Company all the land west of the transit line, over three 
millions of acres,' which is now embraced in the counties of Niagara, 
Erie, Chautauque, Cattaraugus, and all of Allegany, Wyoming, 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 437 

Genesee and Orleans, except their tiers of eastern townships, leaving 
to himself a tract of about 500,000 acres, between the lands of 
Phelps and Gorham, and those he had conveyed to the Holland 
Company. In his conveyance to the Holland Company, he had 
stipulated to extinguish the native title, and had left in their hands 
thirtv-five thousand pounds sterling, of purchase money, as a 
guarantee. 

Various untoward circumstances — the withholding of the mili- 
tary posts by the British, or in fact, their refusal to surrender their 
dominion over this region, the prospects of a renewal of British 
and Indian wars ; and more than all, perhaps, the indisposition of 
the Senecas to part with any more of their lands — delayed the 
fulfilment of this stipulation. It had been the firm determination 
of the Senecas, adhered to strenuously during all the preliminary 
negotiations of Mr. Phelps at Buffalo Creek, to make the Genesee 
river below Mount Morris, their eastern boundary line, and they 
yielded the "Mill Tract" with great reluctance and subsequent regret. 

Fort Niagara was siirrendered by the British, and taken posses- 
sion of by a company of United States troops, under the command 
of Caj)tain J. Bruff, toward the end of the summer of 1796. In a 
few weeks after American possession of that ancient strong-hold 
of French and British power — the spot where the Senecas had so 
often assembled to renew French and British alliance — had been 
established, a numerous delegation appeared before the garrison, 
made a salute after the Indian fashion, which was returned by the 
discharge of artillery. It seemed an overture to establish the rela- 
tions of good neighborhood, and was met by the commandant in 
a spirit which evinced that he did not mean to fall behind his prede- 
cessors in acts of friendship and hospitality. He made a friendly 
speech to them, presented them with the American flag and a bar- 
rel of rum, and apologised for not furnishing them with a supply of 
provisions, alleging that they were scarce at that " distant post." 
In the answer to this speech, the Indians alluded to Mr. Morris' 
pre-emptive right, and begged of Captain Bruff to protect them 
from the " big eater with the big belly," who wanted to come and 
" devour their lands." Mr. Morris was then about to make his appli- 
cation to President Washington for the appointment of a commis- 
sioner, but concluded to delay it on account of this manifestation at 
Fort Niagara. 



438 PHELPS ATH) QORHAm's PUEOHASE. 

The next year, 1797, President Washington, at the solicitation 
of Mr. Morris, consented to nominate a commissioner, with the 
condition that Captain Bruff's speech and the Indians' reply of the 
preceding year, should accompany the nomination to the Senate; 
and observed, that " such was the desire to conciliate the Six Na- 
tions, that he did not believe that the Senate would confirm any 
nomination contrary to their wishes." The Senate confirmed the 
appointment of a commissioner, but with the proviso that he should 
not act until the Indians themselves requested a treaty. The com- 
missioner first appointed was Judge Isaac Smith, of New Jersey; 
but his official duties interfering, Col. Jeremiah Wads worth was 
substituted. 

The task of getting the consent of the Indians to hold a treaty devolv- 
ed upon Thomas Morris, and he observes that it "was not an easy one 
to accomplish." It required journeys on foot and on horseback, con- 
ferences with the Indians in their villages, and all the persuasive 
arts of one who was not unfited for diplomatic missions to red or 
white men. The Indians objected that if they asked for the treaty, 
it would be construed as the expression of a wish to sell their lands. 
Their consent was finally, however, obtained, the time of holding 
the treaty agreed upon, and " Big Tree," now Geneseo, designated 
as the treaty ground. 

All concerned were principally congregated during the last days 
of August. Thomas Morris and Charles Williamson, and James 
Reese, as Secretary, were the representatives of Mr. Morris; 
though Mr. Williamson being called away in an early stage of the 
treaty, the principal labor of negotiation devolved upon Thomas 
Morris. Col. Wadsworlh was in attendance as the commissioner 
on the part of the United States, and William Shepherd as the 
commissioner of Massachusetts. Theophilus Cazenove, who was 
then the representative of the Holland Company in the United 
States, procured in their behalf the attendance of William Bayard, 
of New York, Joseph Ellicott and Col. Linklaen, who were accom- 
panied by two young men by the name of Vanstaphorst, nearly re- 
lated to one of the Dutch proprietors. Beside these, Israel Chapin 
was present, and a large representation of Indian interpreters and 
traders, while many were drawn to the treaty ground from motives 
of curiosity. 

James Wadsworth was then in Europe ; Mr. Morris obtained of 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 439 

William Wadsworth the use of the unfinished residence of the 
brothers, to acconamodate those directly connected with the treaty ; 
and for a council house he provided a large tent covered with green 
boughs, and furnished with a platform and rows of seats, after the 
manner of preparations for a camp meeting. 

Days, and in fact, nearly two weeks, of tardy and fruitless nego- 
tiations succeeded. With few exceptions, the Indians were entirely 
averse to parting with their lands. Red Jacket took the laboring 
oar for his people, though Cornplanter, Farmers Brother, Little 
Beard, and Little Billy, were occasional speakers. 

The first business of the treaty was to deliver a speech address- 
ed to the Indians, by Thomas Morris, containing generally his pro- 
posals. Then followed a long consultation among the Indians to 
frame an answer ; which, when it came, was adverse to any land 
cessions. Meetings and speeches succeeded, Mr. Morris urging 
his proposals and Red Jacket resisting his importunities with ability 
and ingenuity. After some ten or twelve days had been spent, and 
nothing accomplished. Col. Wadsworth became indisposed, impa- 
tient of further delay, and insisted on the business being brought to 
a close ; and about the same time Mr. Morris discovered that the 
influence of white squatters, upon the Indian lands, and some inter- 
preters, whose offers of assistance he had rejected, stood in the way 
of success. The interpreters especially had inculcated among the 
Indians that by standing out they could get a much larger price than 
had been offered. 

Learning that a council of the Indians had decided upon offering 
him a single township, and that only, his friends persuaded him 
against his better judgement, to promptly and indignantly reject the 
offer, which he did on the assembling of the general council, and 
the offer being made. This was thought to be the best expedient to 
bring the Indians to terms, but as it proved, was ill advised. The 
oflfer was a township on the Pennsylvania fine, at one dollar per 
acre, which Red Jacket accompanied with the very comfortable 

JSToTE. — In a speech of Red Jacket's he assumed that if the Senecas parted with 
•what was left of their wide domain, they would be shorn of their influence with 
their neighboring nations. To this Mr. Moms replied, rather tauntingly alluding to 
the treatment that Red Jacket and others of a delegation of Senecas had received 
from the western Indians, wlien they went as peace negotiators to the Miama with 
Col. Pickering and Beverly Randolph; treatment that amounted to contempt. Red 
Jacket parried the assault by shi-ewdly observing that it was aU owing to then- going 
there in bad company, that the circumstance alluded to had admonished them not to 
go in bad company when they visited their friends. 



440 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

assurance, that over and above the purchase money, the land could 
be sold ibr enough to pay all the trouble and expense of the treaty. 
Mr Morris told tiiem if they had nothing better to offer, the sooner 
the conference terminated the better, that all. might return to their 

homes. 

Red Jacket immediately sprung upon his feet, and said : — " We 
have now reached the point to which I wanted to bring you. You 
told us when we first met, that we were free either to sell or retain 
our lands, and that our refusal to sell would not disturb the friend- 
ship that has existed between us. I now tell you that we will not 
part with them. Here is my hand." Mr. Morris taking his hand, 
he ended by saying: — "I now cover up this council fire." A ter- 
rible whooping and yelling followed, and menaces made somewhat 
alarming to those present, who were unacquainted with Indian man- 
ners. To all present, but Mr. Morris, aff'airs looked hopeless, and it 
was with dii^culty that he persuaded Col. Wadsworth and others, to 
remain and let him make another trial. 

The next day, Farmers Brother called upon Mr. Morris, and told 
him that he hoped the failure of the treaty would not diminish the 
friendship that had existed between hun, (Mr. Morris) and his peo- 
ple. Mr. Morris replied that he had no right to complain of their 
refusal to sell iheir lands, but he" did complain of their behavior 
towards him; that they had pei'mitted one of their drunken warriors 
to menace and insult him, whooping and yelling in approbation of his 
conduct. He said he had not deserved such conduct from them ; 
that for years he had not refused them food, or as much liquor as 
was good for them, when they had been at Canandaigua; and that 
his father had treated such of them as had been to Philadelphia, 
with equal hospitality. Farmers Brother admitted that all this was 
true, and regretted that the council fire had been covered up, oth- 
erwise they could meet and " smooth over, and heal these diffi- 
culties." Mr. Morris replied: — "The council fire is not extin- 
guished ; and of this I also complain, that Red Jacket had declared 
the council fire to be covered up, when according to your own 
usao-es, he alone who kindles the council fire, has a right to extin- 
guish it. It is still burning." After a few moments' reflection, 
Farmers Brother assented to the correctness of the conclusion, and 
agreed that the council should be again convened ; Mr. Morris pro- 
posing that it should be delayed a few days, which time he w^ould 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 441 

occupy in examining his accounts, and paying for the provisions 
which had been consumed, collecting the cattle that were not 
slaughtered, and attending to other matters preparatory to leaving 
the treaty ground. 

" The Indians," says Mr. Morris, " are very tenacious of a strict ad- 
herence to their ancient rules and customs ; according to their usages 
the sachems have a right to transact all the business of the nation, 
whether it relates to their lands or any other of their concerns, but 
where it relates to their lands, and they are dissatisfied with the 
management of their sachems, the women and warriors have a 
right to divest them of this power, and take it into their own hands; 
the maxim among them being that the lands belong to the warriors, 
because they form the strength of the nation ; and to the vv'omen 
as the mothers of the warriors. There are therefore in every na- 
tion, head or chief women, who, when in council, select some 
warrior to speak for them. 

With a knowledge of this fact, Mr. JMorris had made up his 
mind to try his luck with this mixed council, as a last resort. He 
brouo-ht about a meeting with the chief women and warriors. He 
told them of the offers that had been made to the sachems ; and 
urged upon the women the consideration, that the money that 
they would receive for their lands, would relieve them from all the 
hardships they then endured. " Now," says he, " you have to till 
the earth, and provide by your labor, food for yourselves and 
children. When those children are without clothing, and shivering 
with cold, you alone are witnesses to their sufferings ; your sachems 
will always supply their own wants. They feed on the game they 
kill, and sell the skins to buy them clothing ; therefore, they are in- 
different about exchanging their lands for money, enough every year 
to lessen your labor, and enable you to procure for yourselves and 
children, the food and clothing necessary for your comfort." He 
concluded by telling them that he had brought a number of presents 
from Philadelphia, which he intended to have given them, only in 
the event of a sale of their lands, but as he had no cause of com- 
plaint against the women, he would cause their portion of the pres- 
ents to be distributed. 

The " women's rights," and well considered diplomatic speech, 
with the presents added, gave a favorable turn to affairs. For sev- 
eral days, the chiefs, women and warriors, were scattered about in 
28 



442 PHELPS AJ^J) GORHAM S PURCHASE. 

small parties, in earnest consultation ; the finale of which was, an 
invitation to Mr. Morris to again open the council. 

They convened, and speeches were made by Mr. Morris, by 
Col. Wadsworth, explaining to the Indians their rights, and the na- 
ture of the pre-emptive claim ; and by the Indians, Red Jacket 
and Cornplanter, principally. But the women and warriors had 
become the real negotiators, and with them, in fact, the bargain 
was made. * 

The purchase money agreed upon was orte hundred thousand 
dollars. The President had directed that it should be invested in 
the stock of the Bank of the United States, in the name of the 
President and his successors in office, as the trustees of the Indians. 
When the sum was agreed upon, it was with great difficulty that 
the Indians were made to understand how much one hundred thou- 
sand dollars was ; the sum far exceeding any rules of their simple 
arithmetic. This difficulty was obviated by computing hovy many 
kegs of a given size it would take to hold it, and how many horses 
to draw it. Another difficulty of still greater intricacy with them 
occurred : — a stock investment would of course give fluctuating 
per annum returns, or dividends ; and this was quite beyond their 
comprehension. They conjectured, however, that the bank was a 
large place in Philadelphia, where a large sum of money was plant- 
ed ; and that like other things that were planted, some years there 
would be a good crop, and some years a poor one. With this con- 
jecture, they were content ; and in years that followed, whenever 
Mr. Morris returned from Philadelphia or New York, they would 
enquire of him what kind of a crop they might anticipate ? 

The Reservations was the next business to be arranged: — Mr. 
Morris had stipulated that he would make no deduction from the 
purchase money, if they were reasonable in their demands in this 
respect. The Indians insisted upon natural boundaries, such as the 
course of streams, &c. To this Mr. Morris objected, inasmuch as 
he could be no judge of the quantity of land within such bounda- 
ries. He brought them to his terms, the naming of square miles, 
in the aggregate about three hundred and fifty. When this came 
to be apportioned among the different villages, a great deal of 

* This may have been the natural course in the exigency that existed, or it may 
have been a convenient expedient of Red Jacket and other cliiefs, to have tlie treaty 
consummated and their dignity unsullied by an appeai-anceof a change of pm-pose. 



PHELPS AND gopjiaim's puechase. 443 

jealousy and rivalry was manifested among the chiefs, as to the re- 
spective allotments. Before it was agreed how much the aggregate 
of the Reservation should be, Red Jacket was exhorbitant in his 
demands, claiming for the reservation of his immediate people at 
Buflalo Creek, nearly one-fourth of all the territory purchased; and 
Cornplanter was scarcely less exorbitant in his demands. They 
were rival chiefs, and their relative importance depended upon the 
respective possessions of their people. Mr. Morris had to assume 
the office of arbitrator, and decide the respective allotments. * 

After all these matters had been adjusted to the satisfaction of 
all parties, a young Indian, then about twenty-four years of age, 
who had not before been to the treaty ground, made his appearance. 
It was Young King. He was, by the female line, a lineal descen- 
dant of " Old Smoke," whose memory was revered as one of the 
greatest men that had ever ruled over the Six Nations. In his life- 
time, his pov/er had been unbounded. Young King was a heavy, 
dull, unambitious, but apparently an honest young man. Seldom 
meddled with the business of the nation ; but when he did so, he ex- 
excised a great hereditary influence. On his arrival, all business 
was suspended, until what had been done was fully explained to 
him. He expressed his disapprobation of the course that had been 
pursued. Farmer's Brother and other chiefs inibrmed Mr. Morris 
that the treaty could not be completed contrary to the wishes of 
Young King ; that however unreasonable it might appear to him 
that one man should defeat the will of a whole nation, it was a 
power which he had derived from his birth, and one which he could 
not be deprived of. Young King at last, though not reconciled to 
their parting with their lands, acquiesced, saying he would no long- 
er oppose the will of the nation. 



* They were : — At Squaky Hill, two square miles ; at Little Beard's Town and Big 
Tree, four ; at Gardeau, twenty-eight ; at Canaedea, sixteen ; Oil Spring, one ; on 
the Allegany River, forty-two ; on the Cattaraugus Creek, forty-two ; on tlie Buffalo 
Creek, one hundred and thuty; on the Tonawanda Creek, seventy ; at Tuscarora, 
one ; at Canawaugus, two. ' 

Note. — Young King resides upon the Buffalo Resei-vation, where he died but a few 
years since. Soon after the war of 1812, he met with an accident, which for a few 
davs, seemed likely to occasion an outbreak among the Senecas : — An altercation oc- 
curred between him and David Reese, the person employed to do blacksmith work for 
the Lidians, by the U. S. Indian agent at Bu.ffalo. It grew out of an alleged failure 
to make or rejiair a lish spear for Young King. In self-defence, Reese dealt a tremen- 
dous blow with a scythe, which nearly severed one of Young King's arms; so nearin 
fact, that amputation had to be immediately resorted to. The Indians became much 



444 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

Red Jacket, who had ably defended the interests of his people, 
and acquitted himself with much credit during the tedious negotia- 
tion, played Red Jacket, and not the great orator, at its close. The 
night previous to the signing of the treaty, he sought a private in- 
terview with Mr. Morris, and told hirn that he had pretended to the 
other chiefs that he was opposed to it ; but that after its execution 
by the other chiefs, he would come to him and have his name affix- 
ed privately ; and for that purpose, wanted a space reserved. He 
added that it would not do for the treaty to go to Philadelphia with- 
out his signature, as Gen. Washington would observe the omission, 
and conclude that he had been degraded, and lost his rank and in- 
fluence among the Senecas. The blank was left, and his signature 
thus privately added. []C7^ For unpublished reminiscences of Red 
Jacket, see Appendix, No. 16. 

Thus concluded a treaty which gave title to all of what is now 
known as the Holland Purchase and Morris' Reserve ; the account 
of which has been given in a detail that may seem to some unne- 
cessary for historical purposes ; but as there had been many garbled 
and imperfect relations of it, the author has availed himself of the 
authentic documents in his possession, to give a pretty full, and 
what may be regarded as a correct history of the whole transaction. 

The surveys of the Holland Company commenced in 1788, un- 
der the general supervision of Joseph EUicott ; surveying parties 
were soon traversing the wilderness in all directions ; a mere woods 
road was made upon the main east and west route ; and before the 
close of 1789, families had moved in for the purpose of opening 
houses of public entertainment at Stafford, near the present village 
of Caryville, and at Clarence ; and at Stafford, Mr. Ellicott had 
erected a store-house quarters for his surveyors, covering them with 
bark. 

In the meantime, Captain Bruff and his successor, Maj. Rivardi, 
had prevailed upon the Indians to allow a sufficient improvement 
of the old Niagara trail to admit of carrying provisions through by 

excited. Among the sons of the white woman at Gardeau, was John Jemison. [See 
Life of Mary Jemison.] Heading a party of warriors, he left Gardeau, and gave out 
upon his route that he was "going to kill Reese." Well does the author remember 
01 heing one of a party of school cliildreu who fled, affrighted, at his approach. He 
personated the "ideal angel of death ;" lie was armed with a war club and tomahawk, 
red paint was daubed upon his swarthy face, and long bundles of liorse hair, dyed 
red, were pendant from each arm. Reese was kept secreted, antl thus, in all probabili- 
ty, avoided the fate that even kindred had met at the hands of John Jemison. 



PHELPS AOT) goeham's puechase. 445 

sleighing, from the settlements east of the river to Fort Niagara ; 
and a weekly horse mail was put upon the long and mostly woods 
route from Canandaigua to Fort Niagara. Add to this, the two or 
three log and one framed hut at Buffalo, and two or three tenements 
at Lewiston, and the reader will have a pretty good idea of all, in 
the way of improvement, that had transpired upon the Holland 
Purchase before the close of 1709 ; and at the close of the cen- 
tury, there was but little more than the addition of a few families 
along on the Buffalo road, and the prosecution of surveys. 

The author had supposed that he was done with Indian wai'S, and 
Indian war alarms ; coming down to this period, he finds a letter from 
Capt. Bruff to Capt. Israel Chapin, which would indicate that some 
apprehension was entertained in this quarter, that the Indians here 
would be drawn into a southern alliance with the western Indians, 
in connection with the then pending difficulties with France and 
Spain. The letter is given in the Appendix, [No. 16,] more as a 
curious local reminiscence than from any thing of local conseq^uence 
allied to it. 

Previous to the advent of Mr. EUicott and his surveying parties, 
in the spring of 1798, the Senecas had not surrendered the possession 
of their lands, and were extremely jealous of any encroachments 
until certain preliminaries were arranged with the Holland Com- 
pany. In March, Hinds Chamberlain and Jesse Beach, who had 
the year previous been to Le Boeuf, Pa., and fixed upon locations 
there, started from Avon, with two yoke of oxen and sleds, and 
making their own road the greater portion of the distance, arrived 
at Buffalo, where some four hundred Indians were assembled, high- 
ly exasperated at what they considered an invasion of their terri- 
tory. The trespassers informed them that Poudry, of Tonawanda, 
had assured them that he had obtained their consent ; and after 
menacing and threatening, the matter was settled by Red Jacket, 
as the principal negotiator, for " two gallons of Indian whiskey, and 
some tobacco." And this is but one of the many instances in 
which that chief sullied his high character, by assisting to feign 
resentment to levy tributes — generally payable in that which he 
would often sacrifice his honor to obtain. 



446 PHELPS AJ^D goeham's puechase. 



CHAPTER IX. 



ALLEGANY JOHN B. CHURCH, AND PHILIP CHURCH. 



John B. Church came from England to the American colonies, a 
young adventurer, a few years previous to the Revolution. He had 
been placed by a wealthy uncle in a large mercantile establishment 
in London, but the business not suiting his inclination, he emigrated, 
fixing his residence in Boston, where he prosecuted for several years, 
with great success, the business of an underwriter. When the 
Revolution broke out, or as soon as an army organization was per- 
fected he was engaged in the commissary department, with Jeremiah 
Wadsworth, in which he continued throughout the war. Gen. 
Philip Schuyler, being also engaged in the commissary department 
for the northern division of the army, business relations led to an 
acquaintance, and before the close of the Revolution, Mr. Church 
married one of his daughters. The official duties of Messrs. Wads- 
worth and Church, embracing the care of the subsistence of the 
French army, an intimate acquaintance with the French mihtary 
and naval officers of the Revolution, succeeded. Soon after the 
close of the Revolution — in '85, — some unliquidated accounts 
between the commissary department and the army of Rochambeau, 
made it necessary for Messrs. Wadsworth and Church to visit the 
French capital, where they remained with their families for eighteen 
months. Mr. Church removed his family to London, residing there 
and at a country seat in Berkshire, on the Thames, until '97, when 
he returned to America, and settled in the city of New York. 

The eldest son of John B. Church, is the present Judge Philip 
Church, of Belvidere, Allegany county, the Pioneer of that region. 
In his early boyhood he was taken to Paris by his father and after- 
wards to England, receiving his education at the celebrated Eaton 
school. Returning to America, he became a student of law, with 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 44 Y 

his uncle Alexander Hamilton,* and also his private Secretary. 
Changing his destination in life soon after his majority, and becom- 
ing the patroon of new settlements in the wilderness. 

Judge Church is now 71 years of age. With a yet vigorous 
intellect, his memory goes back to the early scenes of his youth, and 
calls up reminiscences of the American and French Revolutions, 
of England and Enghsh satesmen, which, although they belong to 
the province of general history, will, the author is confident, not be 
unacceptable, if preserved in these local annals. — See Appendix 
No. 18. 

Whib pursuing his studies, the difficulties occurring with France, 
on the raising of the provincial army, he was commissioned as a 
Captain tiiough he saw little of service, as the difficulty was soon 
adjusted. f Gen. Hamilton, as the agent of John B. Church, had in 
his absence, loaned to Robert Morris ii80,000 and taken a mortgage 
on Morris Square, Philadelphia; the lien being afterwards transferred 
to 100,000 acres of land, on Morris' Reserve in the now county of 
Allegany. In 1800 the mortgage was foreclosed, the land was sold 
at Canandaigua by Benj. Barton, then Sheriff of Ontario, and bid 
in by Phihp Church for his father.J 

At the period of this sale, there was no white settler on all the 
territory now embraced in the county of Allegany, with the excep- 
tion of two localities which will be named. The survey and settle- 
ment of the 100,000 acre tract was commenced under the general 
supervision of Philip Church. Shortly after he had graduated from 
the law office of Edmund Pendleton, where he had finished his law 
studies — in July 1801 — he made a second advent to the Genesee 
country. Taking Geneva and Lyons in his route, he employed as 

*Gen. Hamiltou married a daughter of Gen. Philip Schuyler. 

t When the secretaiy of his uncle, and having frequent occasions to cany messages 
and papers to "Wasliington, he was cautioned by General Hamilton to be punctual, if 
he wished to gain.liis esteem. When apphcation was made for a commission for him 
in the army, Washington at lirst objected that he was too .young; but observing that 
he remembered the promptness and pmictuality of the young man, gi-anted the com- 
mission. 

t This was Judge Church's first visit to the Genesee Country. After his return, he 
visited a club \\ith his father; among the members present, were Brockholst Livings- 
eton, Richard Vamck, Messrs. Bayard andLe Roy, Richard Han-ison, GovemeUr Mor- 
ris. Tlie conversation turned upon the wretched state of the road from New York to 
Albany. PliiH]3 Church remarked that they would have a good turnpike road from 
Albany to Canandaigua before there was one on the Hudson. He was pronounced 
beside himseli by the club, and retiring, he was chided by his father for offering so rash 
an ophiion. 



448 PIIELPS AND GORIIA]\l's PURCHASE. 

surveyor and local agent, Evert Van Wickle, who was accompa- 
nied by John Gibson, John Lewis and Stephen Price. Laying in 
provisions and camp equipage at Geneva and Bath, the party ren- 
dezvoused at the setilement, which had been commenced by the 
Rev. Andrew Gray and Moses Van Campen, in what is now Ahuond, 
Allegany county. Mr. Van Campen, who to use a sailor phrase, 
knew all the " ropes" of the forest, was enlisted in the expedition. 

Proceeding on, the party came to the house of Dyke, a solitary 

.settler who occupied the advanced post of civilization, near the 
junction of the eastern line of Allegany with the Pennsylvania 
line ; slept in a log I arn, and then pushed on into the dark forests 
upon the Genesee River. This was the first breaking into the woods 
in all the region which is now embraced in the western portion of 
Allegany, Wyoming, southern portions of Erie, Ghautauque and 
Cattaraugus, and all that part of Pennsylvania bordering upon this 
states with the exception of Presque Isle, and the solitary family 
of Francis King, at Cerestown, near the Allegany river, that had a 
short time before exchanged a residence in the city of London for 
a solitary one in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, a days journey 
from their nearest neighbor. 

The party made a pretty thorough exploration of the tract, camp- 
ing and breaking up their camp from day to day, encountering 
almost constant rains and swollen streams. With Judge Church it 
was a youthful advent — a first introduction to the woods — and a 
pretty rugged specimen he encountered, as all will acknowledge who 
have traversed the alternating hills and valleys of Allegany. Arriv- 
ed at the north-west corner of the tract, the party mostly returned 
to their homes ; Judge Church and Van Campen, making up their 
minds for a pleasure trip, taking an Indian trail * that bore off in 
the direction of Niagara Falls. This they pursued for two days, 
when they found themselves in the Seneca Indian village. They 
made their appearance in the little white settlement of " New Am- 
sterdam," (Buffalo) in" a sorry plight ; with torn clothes, beards un- 
shaven, tanned and camp smoked. They visited the Falls, returned 



* This trail led from tlie Indian village of Canaedeaon the Allegany river, over the 
summit that divides the waters of the Genesee from those of Lake Erie, fell "jt*^ "^p 
vaUcy of the Cattaraugus, then passed over into the vaUey of tlae west branch ot iiul- 
falo creek, and pursued generally, the course of that stream, to the Indian village at 
its junction with the main stream, four miles from its mouth. 



piiELPS Aio) goeham's puechase. 449 

to Buffalo, and took the " white man's trail " * on their return to 
Bath. No such tramps had been contemplated, and soon after 
leaving Buffalo, money and provisions had both been exhausted ; all 
but a surplus of chocolate, which they exchanged along with the 
new settlers for meals of victuals. Mr. Ellicott had just got his land 
office built at Batavia. At Ganson's there was a militia training, 
the first that was ever had west of the Genesee river. Richard 
W. Stoddard being one of the officers, supplied Mr. Church with 
money ; and proceeding on to Geneseo, they visited Mr. Wads- 
worth, whom Mr. Church had become acquainted with in New 
York. 

Returning to Lyons, Judge Church arranged with Mr. Van Wickle 
to go on to the Allegany lands, and commence surveys and im- 
provements, having previously designated the site of Angelica, as 
a primitive location. A mill calculated for one run of stones, and 
a saw mill, was soon commenced, and a road opened from four miles 
west of Hornellsville, (west line of Steuben) to Angelica.f This 
road was cut through by Silas Ferry and John Ayers. The saw 
mill was in operation in 1802, the grist mill in 1803. A framed 
dwelling house for Mr. Van Wickle, a small log land office, and a 
few shantees to live in, were also erected. Judge Church remembers 
that the transportation of his mill irons from Albany to Angelica, 
cost .f 6,00 per cwt. All the early transporting was done with 
sleighs and wagons, from Geneva (80 miles ;) with light loads, a 
trip would generally consume seven days. In 1802, Joseph Taylor 
opened a tavern. In the same year, Judge Church opened a small 
store, which was managed by John Gibson, one of his companions 
in the primitive exploration, who now survives, a resident of the 
neighborhood of Angelica, aged 72 years. John Ayers who helped 
cut out the first road leading into Angelica, is also alive, a resident 
near the Transit Bridge, on the river. In 1803 a road was opened 
from Angelica to Belvidere, and in 1805 was continued on to the 
present site of Hobby ville, to which point Dr. Hyde had advanced 
and erected a log tavern house. This was in 1807; the road was 
for several years but little better than a woods' path. 



*"Wlien we had made a track through the forest," says Mr, Stephen Lusk, of 
Pittsford, we called it a "white man's trail, to distinguish it from the Indian trails." 

t It was the name of Mrs. PhilijJ Schuyler — " An-ge-gwah-a-ka," after the daugh- 
ter of the Indian chief " San-gi-wa," ° 



450 PHELPS AND GOIiH aim's PURCHASE. 

From the commence 'nent of settlement, until 1805, Allegany was 
a part of the town of Leicester, Ontario county, and the new settlers 
had to go to the old village of Leicester on the Genesee river, via 
Horner.sville, to town meeting. In 1805 what is now Allegany 
county, was erected into a new town, and called Angelica. In 
April of that year the first town meeting was held at the house of 
Joseph Taylor. Benjamin Briggs was elected supervisor. Jacob S. 
Holt, town clerk. Other town officers : — John T.Hyde, David 
Church, Luke Goodspeed, Sylvester Russel, Elijah Church, Wm. 
Barney, Evert Van Wickle, Joseph Taylor, Abisha Cole, Wm. S. 
Heydon, Stephen Waterman, Thomas Cole, John Bennett, Ezra 
Bacon, George Otto, Jacob S, Holt. 

In this year there are the records of roads, as follows : — Through 
main street of Angelica ; from Angelica to Indian line, or Canaedea ; 
from Angelica to south line of Van Campen's farm ; from Angelica 
to Philipsburgh mills ; to Philips creek ; to Vandermark's creek ; 
to Dike's settlement. 

No resolutions were passed in 1805. In 180G Luke Goodspeed 
was supervisor. It was resolved that "every man's yard should be 
his pound ; " that the town of Angelica should pay $2,50 for every 
wolf caught within the limits of the town. 

At the first election, April, 1805, John Nicholas had IG votes for 
Senator: for members of Assembly, Alexander Rhea, had 30 votes, 
Ezra Patterson 25, Daniel W. Lewis 16, Jeremiah Munson 12. In 
1806, Daniel W. Lewis as a candidate for Congress, had 51 votes; 
for the Senate, Joseph Annin 42, Evens Wherey 38, John Mc- 
Whorter 33, 'Freegift Patterson 33; for Assembly, Philip Church 
82, Timothy Burt 35, Philetus Swift 33, Jaaies Reed 32, Asahel 
Warner 30, Joseph M'Clure 6. In 1807, as candidates for Governor, 
Morgan Lewis had 37 votes, Daniel D. Tompkins 28. 

Judge Church spent several months in the new settlement, in 
each of the years 1801, '2, '3, and '4. In 1803, he selected as his 
residence, a location upon the Genesee River, where he now resides, 
four miles from Angelica, which was named Belvidere. His large 
farm is a beautiful sweep of flats, table and up land. The Judge, 
who in his prime, was somewhat noted for athletic feats, is said to 
have looked out the favorite spot, by climbing tall pine trees upon the 
highlands. The winding of the river at that point, and the frequent 
breaks in the ranges of highlands as they rise from the valley, sur- 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE.- 451 

rounds cultivated fields, a fine mansion with its English lawn, culti- 
vated groves, orchards and gardens, — with a varied, wild and ro- 
nnantic landscape. The primitive framed house — built in 1803 — 
which stood for years, an outpost of civilization, is yet preserved; 
its architecture, its old fashioned cut nails, marking a period when it 
must have looked almost aristocratic. Its founder still lives, but 
how many of the early men of the Genesee country, who have 
been sheltered under that venerable roof, have long since gone to 
their graves ! 

Belvidere is retired and secluded, even now. After an occupan- 
cy of nearly half a century, the guest of its hospitable founder, will 
often be waked from his slumbers, by the crack of the rifle, and the 
baying of hounds upon the surrounding hills. How must it have 
been when miles of forest intervened between it and the nearest 
settlements, and those settlements far away from the earlier ones of 
the Genesee country ! 

In 1805, Judge Church married the daughter of General Walter 
Stewart, of Philadelphia,* transferring her at the age of eighteen 
years, from city life and its associations, to the far off home in the 
wilderness, that has been described. The then young wife — the 
now venerable matron — remembers that woods journey, and des- 
cribes it, even in a vein of gaiety and humor. There was the long 
and tedious journey from Albany to Geneva, and Bath ; then the 
jolting wagon, over a wood's road to Hornellsville ; and then whe.n 
wheels could no longer be used, the horseback ride over what was 
but little better than a wood's path, to Angelica, and her new home 
at Belvidere. With a characteristic gallantry, Thomas Morris, then 
the active promoter of settlement, in the Genesee country, accom- 



* Gen. Stewart had a command in the Pennsylvania line durin^z; the Revolution. 
His house in Philadelphia was often the hospitable retreat of Wasliiiigton, La Fayette, 
Rochainbeau, and other of the eminent men of the Revolution. Mrs. Church has a 
valuable heir loom of the family, a relic of the father of his country. It is liis por- 
ti-ait in a frame; upon the back of the frame is pasted an original autograph addressed 
to Mrs. Stewart, whicli accompanied the portrait. It was something unique in its 
way at the time. In the .note, Washington with characteristic modesty, begs Mrs. 
Stewart to regard it " not so much for any merit of the original, as for its excellence as 
a work of art ; the production of a young lady." 

Extract from "Washington's general order book, Moore's House, 1779 : — "The com- 
mander in chief directs a general court martial to be lield at the usual place to-morrow 
morning, at 10 o'clock, for the trial of Col. Armaud ; Col. Walter Stewart to preside." 
Ac. By a resolution of Congress, medals were ordered struck for Gen. "Wayne, Major 
"Walter Stewart and Lt CoL^Fleury, for their gaUant conduct in the storming of Stony 
Point 



452 PHELPS AIsT) GOEHA]m's PUKCHASE. 

panied her in this her bridal tour to the wilderness. She had her 
first experience in housekeeping, and lived for several years, miles 
away from neighbors; often the business of her husband calling 
him away for weeks ; her only companion a colored female domes- 
tic, and a small boy.* She made an early acquaintance with the 
Indians at Canaedea, and was a favorite with them. Upon one oc- 
casion, in the absence of Judge Church, she attended one of their 
festivals, contributing to its feast out of her stores, and enjoying 
with a high relish their Pagan rites, dances and rude sports. They 
gave her as a name, "Ye-nun-ke-a-wa," or the " first woman that 
has come ; " having reference to settlement upon the river. Judge 
Church being in England on the breaking out of the war of 1812, a 
party of Canaedea Indians, headed by a chief, went to Belvidere, 
and in gratitude for Mrs. Church's kindness to their people, offered 
to keep a guard around her house, to protect her from the Bi itish 
Indians. Regarding herself as secure from invasion, in the woods 
of Allegany, she thanked them but declined their proffered gallantry. 

John B. Church died in London, in 1816. His sons, other than 
Philip Church, were : — John B. Church, who now resides in Paris ; 
Alexander, who died young, and Richard, who now resides in Eng- 
land. His daughters became the wives of Bertram P. Cruger, of 
New York, and Rodolph Bunner, late of Oswego. 

The family of Philip Church, now consists of John B. Church, 
of New York, who married a daughter of Professor Silliman; 
Walter and Henry Church, of New York ; Philip ('hurch, who re- 
sides near Belvidere, and Richard Church, who resides at the home- 
stead. Daughters : — Mrs. John Warren, of New York, Mrs. 
Pendleton Hoosick, of New York, and an unmarried daughter, re- 
siding with her parents. 

The southern portion of all that part of Allegany, which is upon 
the Holland Purchase, was not settled until just preceding the war 
of 1812. As early as 1804, a few families had settled at 01ean,but 
no road from Angelica to that point was opened until 1809 or '10, and 
then but a woods road. It was surveyed by Moses Van Campen, 

* There was nracli of woman's nature in her reply, in \< i\g after years, to an obser- 
vation made to her, expressing some surprise that she could have endured such a 
change — from a gay and social city to the woods : — •' Oh," said she, " I was just the 
one to do it, I had youth, health ; to be sure it was pretty hard at first, but the rela- 
tions of a wife, to which was added the cares of a mother, soon reconciled me to my 
new home." 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 453 

in 1815, and soon after settlers dropped in, began to be worked by 
them and the proprietors of Olean ; though when it began, in 1816, 
'17, to be thronged with western emigrants on their way to embark 
upon the Allegany, it was only by sleighing they could get along 
comfortably ; when that left them, as it often did, they plodded 
through sloughs, and over stumps and roots, making slow progress. 
There are emigrants on the Ohio and Wabash and in southern Illinois, 
who remember their early journey through the woods of Allegany 
and Cattaraugus, as by far the most trying scene they encountered 
upon their journey. Soon after 1810, a state road was laid there, 
the state making a small appropriation, but the pay for its construc- 
tion principally made dependent upon the proceeds of tolls. It was 
completed in 1822. The road was principally built by David D. 
Howe. 

In 1805 Judge Church purchased and had drove to Belvidere twen- 
ty-four sheep. Arriving late in the evening, they were folded close 
by the house. In the morning a brother-in-law, from New York, 
being his guest, he invited him out early to see them. Approaching 
the pen, they found 19 of the 24 lying dead. The wolves had 
tracked them in, and made the havoc. As is usual, where they 
have a plenty of victims, they had only bitten the throats, and ex- 
hausted the blood. The woods of Allegany were especially the 
haunts of wild beasts ; trapping and hunting was a serious diver- 
sion of the new settlers, from the work of improvement. 

In early years, the Post-office nearest Angelica, was at Bath, 40 
miles distant. The citizens clubbed, and contracted with William 
Barney to make the trip, carrying letters and papers once a month. 
A blind boy of Mr. Barney made the trips, until he was killed by a 
fall from his horse. 

There was no physician in Allegany, in the earliest years ; Judge 
Church says he brought in a medicine chest, and " Buchan's Family 
Medicine," and occasionally made prescriptions. The nearest phy- 
sician, Dr. Niles, in Steuben county. The first settled physician in 
Angelica, was Dr. Ellis, who was succeeded by Dr. Southworth, 
now of Lockport. 

The primitive religious meetings were held in the loft of Judge 
Church's store house, by the Rev. Andrew Grey. " He was a broad 
shouldered man," says Judge Church, " of extraordinary muscular 
power ; I remember his getting so earnest on one occasion, in en- 



454 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 

forcing religious precepts upon his backwoods congregation, that in 
his gestures, he knocked our store desk to pieces, that we gave him 
for a pulpit." 

That part of the Morris' Reserve, in Allegany, which constituted 
the Church Tract, was six miles wide, lying east of, and adjoining 
the Holland Company's lands. In the division among Mr. Morris' 
creditors, another tract, six miles wide, containing 150,000 acres, 
fell into the hands of Sterritt and Harrison, merchants o-f Philadel- 
phia ; and in turn, this was cut up into small tracts and divided 
among their creditors. This large tract was mostly kept out of 
market until after 1815. South of the Church and Sterritt tract, 
on the Pennsylvania line, is another tract of 37,000 acres, which 
fell into the hands of Willing & Francis, also merchants of Phila- 
delphia ; I\Ir. Willing, of the firm, was President of the old United 
States Bank. 

The first settlement founded after Angelica, was at Van Campen's 
creek, in the direction of Olean. This name was given during the 
primitive advent of IMr. Church, in honor of his woods' companion, 
Mr. Van Campen. Harrison and Higgins were the first settlers. 
Six or seven miles up the river, above Philipsburgh, a settlement 
was commenced by Joseph and Silas Knight. The first settlement 
down the river, was founded by the Sandfords. 

No new country has probably ever been opened for sale and set- 
tlement, that had as rugged features, as much of difficulty to over- 
come, as the territory which comprises the county of Allegany. 
Heavily timbered throughout, with the exception of small spots up- 
on the river, it was many years before the roots were out so as to 
admit of easy cultivation. The new settlements in all early years, j 
were extremely isolated. The wide forests of the Holland Pur- 
chase bordering upon them, had been but little broken into, as late 
as 1S09 or '10, and after that for many years, settlement upon them 
advanced but slowly. When the settlers began to have any thing 
to dispose of, they had no market, but such as involved a ruinous 
cost of transportation, over long woods, roads, and up and down 
steep hills. The very earliest years, however, were far more pros- 
perous than a long period that succeeded. Black salts, pot and 
pearl ashes, and grain could be taken to Hornellsville, and from 
thence go to Baltimore, where it would command cash. This made 
for a few years, pretty brisk times ; but the navigation was precari- 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 455 

ous, and at best, had in each season but a short duration ; and 
soon came on European wars, the embargo to bear especially heavy 
upon the enterprise 'and prosperity that had begun to dawn in the 
secluded backwoods. Pine lumber, was good for nothing, beyond 
the home uses of the new settlers. It was too far from the naviga- 
ble waters of the Allegany, even if there had been roads ; and too 
far from the northern older settlements, to allow of any considerable 
market in that direction. The best of pine trees, instead of being 
any help to the new settler, was a great hindrance, for they constitute 
the most difficult clearing of new lands that is encountered. The 
first considerable market for the pine lumber of Allegany, was at 
Mt. Morris and Dansville, after the completion of the Genese Val- 
ley canal to those points. 

Independent of other hindrances to prosperity — or especially to 
agricultural improvement — two prominent ones have existed ; — 
The mountains, the valleys and the streams, had attractions for the 
hunter, the trapper and the fisherman, and slow progress in felling 
the forest, neglected fields, and dilapidated log tenements, were the 
consequences. The free use of whiskey in all the new settlements 
of the Genesee country, was a curse and a blight, the consequences 
of which — the manner that it retarded prosperity and improve- 
ment — the strong men that it made weak — the woe and the sor- 
row that it carried to ihe log cabins of the wilderness — would form 
a theme that might be regarded as an innovation here ; but elsewhere, 
in its appropriate place, would " point a moral," though it would not 
"adorn a tale." Especially was this an evil where men were 
attracted by the causes that have been named, from legitimate pur- 
suits. The other local hindrance succeeded when lumbering be- 
came a sufficient object to draw men away from agricultural im- 
provements. 

Soon after 1807, a serious embarrassment was added to other 
difficulties upon the Church tract, which constituted nearly all the 
settled portions of Allegany. John B. Church, who was then resi- 
ding in New York, became embarrassed, principally in consequence 
of French spoliations upon American commerce ; having made 
large ventures as an underwriter.* The title of one half of the 

* His heirs have now large, and as it would seem just claim upon our government, 
growing out of this. By Treaty with France, our government assumed payment of 
the claims. 



456 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

100,000 acre tract, was in his son, Philip Church, but there had been 
no division ; a mixed interest was assigned to trustees, for the benefit 
of his creditors, and there was no final division and settlement until 
1815. In all this time there was a distrust of title, which hin- 
dered settlement, and created an unsettled state of things, as the 
same cause always will. 

The war of 1812 prostrated all of enterprise and progress in all 
the newly settled portions of the Genesee country, where they had 
no surplus produce, were consumers instead of producers. The new 
settlements of Allegany furnished their full quota of men for the 
frontier, drawn from feeble settlements, where they could least be 
well spared ; some were left upon battle fields, died in hospitals, or 
returned to die of disease contracted upon the frontier. Peace had 
but just been concluded, when the cold and untoward season of 
1810, came upon them, its biting frosts upon hill and valley, de- 
stroying all their hopes of sustenance, creating distress and want, 
driving, in many instances, men to the game in the forest, the fish in 
the streams, and wild roots and herbs, as their only resources to ward 
off a famine. Independent of their own sufferings and privations, 
they had quartered upon them the poor Indians of Canaedea,who were 
reduced to the extremity of want. Then came propitious seasons, 
life and activity ; for a few years a tide of emigration flowed through 
their midst, on their way to Olean, and down the Allegany, creating 
a home market for their produce. This lasted, gradually declining^ 
until the Erie canal had reached its western terminus, when emigra- 
tion was entirely diverted, and their main roads and public houses 
were deserted. The Erie canal so difflisive in its benefits, stimu- 
lating to life and activity, in all other localities of western New 
but came to crush the hopes, and depress the energies of the people 
of Allegany and Cattaraugus. Recovering from its first effects, 
gradually, and remotely, its benefits began to reach them, even be- 
fore the construction of the Valley canal. 

It is after almost a half century's struggle, but for Allegany the 
" better time" has come. The whistle of the steam cars are start- 
ling the deer that yet linger in her forests ; the echoes of the boat- 
man's horn, ere these imperfect annals will issue from the press, will 
be sounding along the valley of the upper Genesee ; the dark forests 
are rapidly disappearing ; the neat framed house is taking the place of 
the moss covered log cabin ; all is putting on the appearance of re- 



PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 4:51 

newed enterprise and rapid progress. Long almost a " terra incogni- 
tia" her near neighbors on the " northern plains," her soil, her climate, 
pure water and pure atmosphere, is beginning to be appreciated ; 
and she will soon occcupy a better relative position in the empire 
region of the Empire State. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE PIONEER PRINTERS AN'D NEWSPAPERS. 



Mr. Williamson was directly connected with the introduction of the 
printing press into the Genesee country. The two first newspapei-s were es- 
tablished under his auspices and patronage. Early in January, 1796, he pro- 
cured from Northumberland or Sunbury, in Pennsjdvania, a second hand 
newspaper office, and enlisted as printers and publishers, Wm. Kersey * and 
James Edie. They issued "The Bath Gazette and Genesee Advertiser." 
This was the first newspaper published in western New York. 

In the same year, he induced Lucius Carey, who had been publishing a 
paper at Newburg, to sell out and establish himself at Geneva. Mr. Carev 
forwarded his printing materials by water, and came himself, with his house- 
hold goods, by land. On his arrival, he wrote to Mr. Williamson at Albany, 
that he had ended a long and expensive journey ; ai'rived, and found his 
house unfinished, a,nd no room provided for his office, f He got settled durmg 



* It is presumed that Mr. Kersey may have had a connection with the paper, not as 
printer, but as one of Mr. Williamson's agents at Bath. He was a Friend, as would 
appear by his letters. In one of them, written to Mr. Williamson at Albany, he speaks 
of having located some new settlers, and at the same time, asks for some new type, 
urging that the type they have brought from Pennsylvania is "old and worn." " We. 
on considering the case, conclude it is best to have a sufficient quantity of new type to 
complete the office, so that we may do business in good fashion ; therefore request that 
in additi(m to the order by Capt. Coudiy, thou may be pleased to send us as soon as 
may be, 200 weight of small pica or bourgeois. We have some encouragement to pur- 



byt ^.. 

Jury, " for not holding an election at the Painted Post for a representative in Con- 
gress." 

t " The Pioneer printer was in ill humor. He says to Mr. Wilhamson : — I am now 
lying idle, and how long I shall, I cannot say, onlv for the want of a room to work 
in. My house was to be done in July, and it is a raortifving reflection to me to have 
29 



458 PHELPS AKD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

the winter, however, and in April, l79V, brought out the first number of the 
" Ontario Gazette and Geneseo Advertiser." The paper was continued but 
about a year and a half at Geneva, after Avhich it was removed to Canandai- 
gua, and continued until 1802, when the office was sold, and the name of the 
paper changed to " Western Repository and Geneseo Adveiliser." Mr. 
Carey died in Canandaigua, in 1804. 

Janies K. Gould was the immediate successor of Mr. Carey. In May, 
1803, he issued "for the proprietors," the "Western Repository and Gene- 
see Advertiser." In August, 1803, Mr. Gould, in company with Russell E. 
Post, purchased the establishment, and changed the title to " Western Reposi- 
tory." In October, 1804, this partnership was dissolved, and James D. 
Bemis took the place of Mr. Post. Mr. Gould dying in March, 1808, the 
paper was continued by Mr. Bemis, with only a slight change of title, for 
twenty-one years. The paper is still published, being now the oldest news- 
paper in western New York. The immediate successors of Mi". Benus were, 
Chauncey Morse and Samuel Ward, the former of whom was a brother-in- 
law of Mr. B., and the latter a nephew. Mr. Harvey was at one period 

associated with Mr. Morse in its publication. The present editor and publisher, 
is George L. Whitney. 

In 1803, Sylvester Tiffany established in Canandaigua, the Ontario Free- 
man. He was from New Hampshire ; his wife, one of the well kno\vTi fami- 
ly of Ralstons, of that State. For several years before settling at Canandai- 
gua, Mr. Tiftany had ])ublished a paper at Niagara, U. C. He was for sever- 
al years clerk of Ontario county. He died in 1811. His widow still sur- 
^^ives, a resident of Rochester. The surviving sons are : — Sylvester Tiffany, 
an early merchant in Le Roy; George A. Tiffany, who married a daughter of 
Mrs. Bei'iy, at Avon, and now resides in Wisconsin ; Alexander R. Tiffany, 
who studied law in Canandaigua, mai'ried a daughter of Dr. Gain Robinson, 
and is now Judge Tiffany, of Adrian, Michigan. Dean 0. Tiffany, the 
youngest son, was a clerk in the book store of James D. Bemis, of Canandai- 
gua, and subse<piently, in the Everingham store in Rochester; died at the 
south. Daughters became the wives of Stephen and William Charles, of 
Rochestei", and John C. Ross, of C. W. 

John A. Ste\ens was the successor of Mr. Tiffany, commencing the pub- 
lication of the Ontario Messenger in 1806. The Repository and Messenger, 
under the management of Messrs. Bemis and StCA'ens, were for a considerable 
peiiod the leading papers of the respective parties whose interests they es- 
poused. " Mr. Stevens," says a brief biographei", * "was a kind, affection- 
ate, and good hearted man, and very generally esteemed by all who knew 
him." He died some twenty years since. 

my parents hear that I must lay idle for the want of a house, when I had spoke so 
iiuK'h in praise of the town, and been tlie means of a number coming to it since I 
was here in the winter." He says lie almost repents of liis bars;ain ; yet, with the loan 
of an $100, he thinks he can get a paper out, and move along, " if he can get a room." 
His dwelling house was finally furnished, and a far better one it mnst have been than 
Pioneer printers usually enjoy, as the amount paid for it by Mr. WilUamson, was over 
$2,000 

* Frederick Follett, Esq., who compiled the proceedings of the " Printers' Festival" 
in Rochester, held in 1847, and added a " History of the Press of Western New 
York." 



PHELPS AM) GORHAlVl's PURCHASE. 459 

Of tlie large number of printers, most of whom have been, or are now, 
conductors of newspapers, who served their apprenticeships with Messrs. 
Bemis and Stevens, the names of the following occur to the author : — Oran 
Follett, David M. Day, Lewis H. Redfield, Hezekiah and kSniith Salisbury, 
A. II. Bennett, Thomas B. Barnum, Randall Meacham, John Van Sice, Ed- 
ward Van Cleve, John Gilbei't, Elisha Starr, beside many others of a later 
period; and the Author of this work, in part. 

Eben Eaton, a brother of General Eaton, was the successor of Mr. Carey 
at Geneva. He started a paper in 1800, called "The impaitial Observer 
and Seneca Museum." 

James Bogert came to Geneva in 1806. He served his apprenticeship in 
the old othce of T. & J. Swords, New York. In November, 1806, he is- 
sued the tirst number of the "Expositor," which was continued until 1809, 
when he changed the title to " Geneva Gazette." He conducted the paper 
for over twenty-seven years, retiring from it in 1833. Next to Mr. Bemis, 
he is the oldest survivor of the conductors of the press in western New York. 
He was a good printer and editor, and in all respects, a worthy member of 
the "craft." He was upon the frontier in the war of 1812, bearing the com- 
mission of Captain in the regiment of Colonel Peter Allen, and was after- 
wards commissioned as a Colonel. After i-etiring from the Gazette, he was 
for five years Collector of Canal Tolls at Geneva. 

James D. Bemis may justly be regared as the father of the press of west- 
ern New York : and this not only with reference to his early and long con- 
tinued connection with it, but with farther reference to the large number of 
printers who have gone out from under his instruction ; his character as a man, 
and as a member of a local craft, the dignity and respectability of which he 
lias in so large a degree maintained. He was a native of New Hampshire; 
though, if the author rightly recollects, he served his apprenticeship in Al- 
bany. Soon after arriving at his majority, in the winter of 1803, he left 
Albany with a small stock of books and stationery, intending to locate in 
Canada, but arriving in Canandaigua, was induced by the favorable prospects 
held out there, to make it his permanent home. [See his own cotemporary 
account of his advent. Appendix, No. 19.] Soon engaging with Mr. Gould 
in the Repository, he sold his stock of books and stationery to Myron Holley ; 
but it was not long before he connected book-selling Avith printing, and for 
many years was not only the editor and publisher of the most successful 
newspaper in western New York, but he enjoyed almost a monopoly in the 
printing of handbills, blanks, in the sale of books, and in the business of 
l>(>ok-binding, in a wide region. All of this was managed by a close applica- 
tion to business, in a careful, systematic manner, peculiar to the man. No 
one connected with the newspaper press in western New York, has been more 
successful, and no one better deserved success. 

Mr. Bemis still survives, having reached his VOth year. Sincerely is it la- 
mented by a wide circle of friends — and especially by those who have known 
him most intimately; many of whom owe him gratitude as well as respect — 
that the evening of his long and useful life is clouded with misfortune. He 
has been for a considerable period an inmate of an institution at Brattleboro, 
Vt., under treatment for the cure of physical infirmities, in which his once 
well balanced mind in some degree paiticipates. * He married in early hfe ; 
his wife still survives. An only son is George W. Bemis of Canandaigua, 



460 PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

the successor of his father as a bookseller, who nas recently been appointed a 
Deputy U. S. Marshall. Daughters became the wives of Thadcleus Chapin 
of CanandaigTia, and Wm. B. Peck, a bookseller of New York, recently of 
Buffalo. 



* In the absence of the infirmities alluded to, he ■would, perhaps, have been the his 
torian of this local region. In a letter to the author of this work, about the period he 
was commenciug the history of the Holland Purchase, he commended the enteiprise, 
and added : — " The western part of our great State is full of interest in its fifty years 
career, whether we consider the events of that period, or the chai-acter of men who 
acted their parts in transforming then- country from a wilderness to what is now em- 
phatically the GAEPEN OF THE State. I Only wanted two things in my power to do, 
namely : to die as the oldest editor in western New York, (wliich I am,) and to write 
its history." 



[end of general history of PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE.J 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



GENERAL HISTORY OF PHELPS AND GORHAM'S 
PURCHASE. 



[Note. — A table of contents wMch would embrace a reference to localities, persons 
and events, in regular order, was found far too elaborate, and occupying too much 
space. A shorter one has therefore been adopted, by which the reader, having refer- 
ence to locaKties, will be enabled to refer to any given subject, event or person, with 
little difficulty.] 

PART FIRST. 

CHAPTER I.— [Commencing page 9.] —Brief notices of Early Colonization — Pro- 
oress of the French upon the St. Lawi-ence- French and Indian, and French and 
Eno-lish Wars — Progress of the French around the borders of the Western Lakes 
— Discovery of the Mississippi by Marquette and JoHet — First advent of our 
race to western New York — La Salle — First sail vessel upon the Upper Lakes — 
M. de La Barrie's invasion of the couutiy of the IroquoLs — De Nonville's inva- 
sion of the Seneca Countiy, in what is now Ontario County — Founding of Fort 
Niagara — French and Enghsh battles in the region of Lakes George and Cham- 
plain. 

CHAPTER II.— [Com. page 46.] — Siege and Smi-ender of Fort Niagai'a — Con- 
quest of Western New York. 

CHAPTER III.— [Com. page 56.] — Siege and Capture of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, 
Quebec and Montreal — Peace of 176"3, end of French Dominion. 

CHAPTER IV.— [Com. page 69.] — English Dominion — Border Wars of the Rev- 
olution — SuUi van's Campaign. 



PART SECOND. 

CHAPTER I.— [ Com. page 85.]— Our immediate predecessors, the Senecas, with a 
glance at the Iroquois — their wars with their own race, and with the French — 
their bravery and prowess — invasion of their country by De Nonville. 

CHAPTER II. — [Com. page 99.] — Conflicting claims to western New York — In- 
dian Treaties — The Lessee Company — The Militaiy Tract. 

CHAPTER III.— [Com. page 127.] — The Genesee Country at the period when set- 
tlement commenced — its position in reference to contiguous territory — Condi- 
tion of the country generally after the Revolution. 

CHAPTER IV.— [Com. page 135.] — Phelps and Gorham's Purchase of Massachu- 
setts — Oliver Phelps, his advent to the Genesee Country, and his treaty with the 
Senecas — Nathaniel Gorham. 

CHAPTER V. — [Com. page 153.] — Jemima Wilkinson — Pioneer events in what is 
now Yates County. 



462 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 



PART THIRD. 

CHAPTER I. — [Com. page 164.] — Commencement of .surveys and settlement of 
the Genesee Country — Pioneer events at Cauandaigua — Mrs. Sanborn — Judge 
Howell — other early Pioneers — Bloomfickl — the Adams faniilj — other pioneer 
families — Reminiscences of James SpeiTy — Micah Brooks — West Bloomfield 

— Pittstown — Pitt's family — Other early Pioneers — Reminiscences of Mrs. 
Farnum — TheCtipmaus and Allans — Gorham, Farmington, Manchester — Re- 
miniscences of Peleg Redfield — The Mormons — Phelps — Geneva — James 
Reese. 

CHAPTER II.— [Com. page 240.] — Sale of Phelps and Gorham to Robert Morris 

— Rc;-sale to English Association — Advent of Charles Williamscm — Events at 
Williamsburg, Bath, Geneva, Lyons, Sodus, Caledonia, Braddock's Bay — John 
Greig — Robert Troup — Joseph Fellows. 

CHAPTER III.— [Com. jiage 284.] — Indian difficulties— British interference — 
Indian councils — Gen. Israel Chapin — Jasper Parrish. 

CHAPTER IV. — [Com. page 315.] — Attempt of Gov. Simcoeto break up the set- 
tlement at Sodus Bay — British claims to western New York — Wayne's Victory 

— Surrender of Forts Oswego and Niagara. 

CHAPTER V. — [Com. page 324.] — James and WiUiam Wadsworth — Horatio and 
John H. Jones — The Indian villages on the Genesee River — Early orginization of 
the " District of Geneseo " — Leicester, Moscow, ML Morris — Valley of the Can- 
ascraga — DansviUe — Wm. Fitzhugh — Charles Carroll — Avon — Reminiscen- 
ces of George Hosmer — Lima. 

CHAPTER VI. — [Com. page 378.] — Pioneer events in what is now Wayne county 

— John Swift — Harwood, Spears, Durfees, Rodgers, otlier early Pioneers — Wm 
Howe Cujder — Lyons — Dorseys, Van Wickles, Pen'ine, other early settlers — 
Ridge Road — Sodus Bay — Peregrine Fitzhugh — Dr. Lummis. 

CHAPTER VII. — [Com. page 403.] — Pioneer events in what is now Monroe — 
Peter ShaefFer — Wm. Henchcr — Col. Fish — Atchinsons — Braddock's Bay — 
King's settlement — Brighton — Lusks, Stones, Oliver Culver — Tryon's Town- — 
Penfield — Gen. Fassett — Pittsfoixl, Perrinton. [Omission supplied in reference to 
Victor, West Bloomfield and Bristol, page 431.] 

CHAPTER VIII. — [Com. page 436.]— The Monis Treaty at Big Tree — Cession 
of the tenitory west of rhelps and Gorham's Pm-chase — Early Printers and 
Newspapers. 



APPENDIX. 



[NO. 1.] 

EXTRACT FROM MANUSCRIPTS IN THE JESUITs' COLLEGE AT aUEBEC. 



On the 5tli of Febraary, 1663, about half past five o'clock in the evening, a great 
rushing noise was heard throughout the whole extent of Canada. This noise caused 
the people to run out of their houses into the streets, as if their habitations had been 
on fire ; but, instead of flames or smoke, they were sm-prised to see the walls reeling 
backward and fonvai'd, and the stones moving as if they were detached from each 
other. The timbers, rafters and planks cracked. The earth trembled violently, and 
caused the stakes of the pahsades and palings to dance, in a manner that would have 
been incredible, had we not actually seen it in many places. It was at this moment 
every one ran out of doors. Then were to be seen animals flying in every dii-ection ; 
children crying and screaming in the streets ; men and women, seized with affright, 
stood horror-struck with the dreadful scene before them, unable to move, and ignor- 
ant where to fly for refuge from the tottering walls and trembling earth, which threat- 
ened every instant to crush them to death, or sink them into a profound and immeas- 
urable abyss. Some threw themselves on their knees in the snow, crossing their breasts, 
and calling on their saints to relieve them from the danger with which they were sur- 
rounded. Others passed the rest of this dreadful night in prayer ; for the earthquake 
ceased not, but continued at short intervals, with a certain undulating impulse, resem- 
bling the waves of the ocean ; and the same qualmish sensations, or sickness at the 
stomach, was felt during the shocks, as is experienced in a vessel at sea. 

" The \-iolenc6 of the earthquake was greatest in the forest, where it appeared as if 
there was a battle raging between the trees ; for not only their branches were destroy- 
ed, but even tlieir tnmks ai-e said to have been detached from their places, and dashed 
against each other with inconceivable violence and confusion — so much so, that the 
Indians, in their figurative manner of speaking, declared that all the forests were drunk. 
The war also seemed to be carried on between the mountains, some of which were 
torn from their beds and thrown upon others, leaving immense chasms, in the places 
from whence they had issued, and the very trees with which they were covered, sunk 
down, leaving only their tops above the surface of the earth ; others were completely 
overlurnecl, their branches buried in the earth, and the roots only remained above 
gi-ound. During this general wreck of natui-e, the ice upward of .six feet thick, 
was rent and thrown up in large pieces, and from the openings in many parts^ 
there isued thick clouds of smoke, or fountains of dirt and sand, which spouted up to 
a very considerable height. The springs were either clioked up, or impregnated with 
sulphur ; many rivers were totally lost ; others were diverted from their courses, and 



464 APPENDIX. 

ilieir waters entirely comipted. Some of them became yeUow, others red, and the 
threat river of the St. Lawrence appeared entirely -white, as far down as Tadoussac 
This extraordinary phenomena, must astonish those who knew the size of the river 
and the immense body of waters in various parts, which must have requii-ed such 
abundance of matter to whiten it. They write from Montreal, that during the earth- 
quake, they plainly saw the stakes of the picketing or pahsades, jump up as if they 
had been dancing ; and that of two doors in the same room, one opened and the 
Dthershut of their own accord; that the chimneys and tops of the houses, bent like 
branches of the ti'ees agitated with the wind ; that when they went to walk, tliey felt 
tlie earth following them, and rising at every step they took, something sticking 
against the soles of their feet, and other things in a very forcible and surprising man- 
ner." 

" From Three Rivers they wi'ite that the first shock was the most violent, and com- 
menced with a noise resembling thunder. The houses were agitated in the same man- 
ner as the tops of trc^s durmg a tempest, with a noise as if fire was cracking in the 
gan-ets. The shock lasted half an hour, or rather better, though its greatest force wa.s 
properly not more than a quarter of an hour, and we believe there was not a single 
shock, which did not cause the earth to open more or less. 

" As for the rest, we have remarked that, though this earthquake continued almost 
without intermission, yet it was not always of an equal violence. Sometimes it was 
like the pitching of a large vessel which dragged hea\aly at her anchors, and it was 
this motion which caused many to have giddiness in then- heads, and a qualmishness 
in their stomachs. At other times the motion was hurried and iiTegidar, creating sud- 
den jerks, some of which were extremely violent ; but the most common, was a slight, 
tremulous motion, which occuiTed frequently witli little noise. Many of the French 
inhabitants, and Indians, who were eye-witnesses to the scene, state that a great way 
up the river of Trois Rivieres, about eighteen miles below Quebec, the hills which bor- 
dered the river on eitlier side, and which were of a prodigious height, were torn from 
tlmr foundations, and plunged into the river, causing it to change its course, and 
spread itself over a large tract of land recently cleared ; the broken earth mixed with 
the waters, and for several months changed the color of the great river St. Lawrence, 
into which that of Trois Riviers disemboques itself In the com'se of this violent con- 
vulsion of nature, lakes appeared where none ever existed before ; moimtains were 
overthi-own, swallowed up by the gaping, or precipitated into adjacent rivers, leaving 
in thefr places frightful chasms or level plains ; falls and rapids were changed into 
gentle sti'eams, and gentle streams into falls and rapids. Rivers in many parts of the 
country sought other beds, or totally disappeai-ed. The earth and momitains were 
entirely split and rent in innumerable places, creating chasms and precipices, whose 
depths have never yet been ascertained. Such devastation was also occasioned in the 
woods, that more than a thousand acres in one neighborhood were completely over- 
turned ; and where, but a short time before, nothing met the eye but an immense forest 
of trees, now were to be seen extensive cleared lands, apparently cut up by the plough. 

At Tadoussac, (about 150 miles below Quebec, on the north side,) the effect of the 
earthquake was not less violent than in other places ; and such a heavy shower of vol- 
canic ashes fell in tliat neighborhood, particularly in the river St. Lawrence, that the 
water was as violently agitated as during a tempest. The Indians say that a vast 
volcano exists in Labrador. Near- St. Paul's Bay (about fifty miles below Quebec 
on the north side,) a mountain, about a quarter of a league in circumference, situated 
on the shore of tlie St. Lawrence, was precipitated into the river, but as if it had only 



APPENDIX. 465 

made a plunge, it rose from tlie bottom and became a small island, forming witli the 
sliore a convenient harbor, well sheltered from all winds. Lower down the river, 
toward Point Alouettes, an entire forest of considerable extent, was loosened from the 
main bank and slid into the river St. Lawrence, where the trees took fresh root. There 
are three circumstances, however, which have rendered this extraordinary earthquake 
particularly remarkable : — The first is its duration, it; having continued fi-om February 
to August, that is to say, more than six months almost without intermission. It is 
true, the e'lucks were not always equally violent. In several places, as toward the 
mountains beliind Qitbec, the thundering noise and trembling motion continued suc- 
cessively for a considerable time. In others, as toward Tadoussac, the shock contin- 
ued generally for two or three days at a time, with much violence. 

The second cucumstance relates to the extent of this earthquake, which we believe, 
was universal throughout the whole of New France, for we learn that it was felt fi-om 
L'Isle Perce and Gaspe, which are situated at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, to be- 
yond Montreal ; as also in K'ew England, Arcadia, and other places more remote. As 
far as it has come to our knowledge, this earthquake extended more than 600 miles in 
length, and about 300 in breadth. Hence, 180,000 square miles of land were convul- 
sed in the same day, and at the same moment. 

The third circumstance, which appears the most remarkable of all, regards the ex- 
traordinary protection of Divine Providence, which has been extended to us and our 
habitations ; for we have seen near us the large openings and chasms wliich the earth- 
quake occasioned, and the prodigious extent of country which has been either totally 
lost or hideously convulsed, without oiu- loosing either man, woman, or child, or even 
having a haii* of their head touched." 



[NO. 2.] 
DE NONVILLe's invasion OF THE- GENESEE COUNTRY. 



Succeeding M. de la BaiTe, the Governor, De KonviUe, had immediately commenced 
peace negotiations with the Senecas ; at times there seemed every prospect of a favora- 
ble issue ; but the EngUsh Governor, Dongan, was evidently thi-owing every obstacle 
in the way of peace. Had he been otherwise disposed, a powerful influence was 
brought to bear upon him : The English traders had approached the productive hunt- 
ing grounds of Western New York ; and were stimulated by the prospect of gain which 
they afforded ; and this region was their only practicable avenue of approach to the 
still more extensive field of Indian trade around the borders of the western Lakes. 
The mercenary views of the EngUsh traders predominated over any regard for the 
peace of their colony. The sale of poor English brandy to the Indians, and the ac- 
quisition of rich packs of beaver were considerations with them paramount to those which 
involved questions of peace or war between France and England. They of course 
were not the peace counsellors of Gov. Dongan. 

France and De Nonville had a faithful helper, in the person of the Jesuit Father 
Lamben'ille, who had been for sixteen years located as a mis.'rionary, at Onondaga, 
the centi^al canton of the Iroquois. He had, not unworthily, acquired great influence, 
and he exercised it in favor of peace. He had perseveringly endeavored to prevent 
the infaroduction of spiritous hquors among the Indians ; had foretold its consequences, 
and in all things else had proved their friend. Pending the visit of M, de la Barre to 



466 APPENDIX. 

the south shore of Lake Ontario, he had exerted himself to procure a conference be- 
tween the French and all the IroquoLs nations ; and in order to remove every obstacle, 
had opened a friendly correspondence with Gov. Dongan, to induce him to be on the 
side of peace. "Let your zeal," he wrote, "for the public peace, and especially for 
the Christians of this America, induce you to put a finishing hand to this good 
work. Since peace, through yom- care, will apparently last, we shall continue to carry 
the Christian faith through tliis country, and to solicit the Indians, whom you honor 
with your friendship, to embrace it, as you yourselves embrace it, for this is the sole 
object that has caused us to come here ; that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed for aU 
men, may be useful to them, and that his glory may be great throughout the earth." 
The good missionary requests the Governor to send his answer bj Garakontie, an 
Onondaga, whom he will meet at Albany ; and he exhorts him " to have a little care 
for Garakontie," to recommend him "not to get drunk any more, as he promised when 
he was baptised, and to perform the duties of a Chiistian." 

On the advent of De KonviUe, Father Lamberville seconded aU his efforts for 
peace, though as duty to his country dictated, he at the same time kept the Governor 
informed of all the English were doing to prejudice the Iroquois against tlie French. 

The winter of 1685, '6, wore away, the French shut up at Montreal, and at their 
advanced posts, and the English, not venturing much beyond the Hudson. Little 
could be done in the winter in the way of peace negotiations, war, or trade, as the 
navigable waters, the only means of communication, Avere principally closed with ice. 

In May, De NonviUe informed his governnient,that there had been seen on Lake Erie, 
ten English canoes, laden with merchandise, in which were some French deserters ; and 
mentions that he had sent a small force to Niagara to intercept them on their return. 
He gives a minute topographical description of Niagara ; describes its command- 
ing position ; and recommends the erection of a fort there, as the most effectual means 
of preventing English encroachments at the west ; and he is of the opinion that if 
the Senecas should see a fort jjlanted there, they would be more pliant." He informs 
the government that he has assumed the responsibility of sending an engineer and 
di-aughtsman to Niagara, to locate the Fort, and make the necessary di-awings."* The 
expense attending the getting of military stores and provisions to Kingston, is men- 
tioned as a serious drawback to his operations, it costing not less than "110 liVres 
from ViUe Marie, on the Island of Montreal, to Catarokouy, per 1000 lbs." 

Soon after this dispatch had been forwarded to France, De NonviUe received a letter 
from the English Governor, abounding in jjrofessions of friendship, and a disposition 
to preserve peace between the two nations ; laments that the Indians had dealt harshly 
with two Jesuit Missionaries ; and thinks it " a thousand pitties that those who made 
such progix'ss in the service of God, should be disturbed ; and that by the fault of 
those who laid the foundation of Christianity amonst those barbarous people." In 
this letter, however, the English Governor distinctly asserts the right of English do- 
minion, aU along the south shores of Lake Ontario, and up to the eastern banks of 

* This is undoubtedly the incijiient step to the occupation of the site of Fort Niag- 
ara. In his History of the HoUaud Purchase, the autlior has assumed that La Salle 
erected a trading post tliere; but better information leads him to the conclusion that 
this was an eiTor. 

Note. — The reader will bear in mind, that up to this period of colonization in 
America, the question of' right, as to jurisdiction and dominion, was but illy defined. 
Boundaries were but imaginarj', no surveyor's compass having marked them ; no 
" stakes or stone-s" had been set up. The French cljiimed dominion and pre-emptive 



APPENDIX, 46 1 

the Niagara River, complains of the gathering of stores at "Cataraqui," (Kingston,) 
as it is evidence of intention to war upon the Iroquois, who, it is assumed are the 
king of England's subjects, and protests against the intentions of the French to build 
a flbrt at a place called Ohnigero, on this side of the Lake, within my master's ter- 
ritoryes." 

Other correspondence transpired between the Governors of the rival colonists, and 
both kept then- governments informed of all that was going on in thi-s portion of the 
new world. The diplomacy of the Governors, was marked throughout with insincer- 
ity ; they mutually concealed from each other their real intentions. Gov. Dongan 
occasionally falls into a vein of flattery : — On one occasion he expresses his "liigh 
satisfaction that the King of France has sent him so good a neighbor, of so excellent 
quahfications and temper, and of a humor altogether diiFereut from Monsieur La Barre, 
who was so furious and hasty, very much addicted to great words, as if it had bin to 
have bin frightened by him." De Nonville aware that Gov. Dongan was a CathoUc, 
takes good care to often impress him with the idea, that all that he is doing has refer- 
ence to "the glory of God, and the propagation of the Christian faith." Suddenly 
however, his tone changed, and he charged the English Governor with inciting the 
Indians to murder Frenchmen upon their own territory ; of being privy to the " mar- 
tyrdom of holy missionaries ; " of having sent an English expedition to Mishillima- 
quina." " Think you," says he, "that religion will progress, whilst your merchants 
supply as they do, Eau de vci in abundance, which converts the savages into demons, 
and their wigwams into counteqjarts and theatres of hell." He charges in addition, 
that the EngUsh have "hai'bored and protected French runaways, banki-upts and 
thieves." 

De Nonville informed his King of English encroachments upon French teftitory ; 
of their expeditions to the West; of their holding councils with the Iroquois, and es- 
pecially the Senecas ; of their arming and inciting them to war upon the French ; 
and ooncluds with the opinion, that there can be no success for the French Mission- 
aries or Traders, until the Senecas are humbled ; and for this purpose he demands a 
large reinforcement from France. The King assured him that his demands should be 
compUed with, and recommends prompt oSensive measures. 

Much othei correspondence passed between De Nonville and his government, and 
between the two Governors, which is not material to an understanding of events that 
followed. 

right over all the lands of the Indians, among whom thou- missionaries and traders had 
gained a foothold. By this tenure they were, at the period upon which we are now dwell- 
mg, claiming the whole valley of the Western Lakes, and of the Mississippi ; over 
into Texas and New Mexico, by -reason of the advent of La Salle ; and all of what is 
now New York, as low down as the eastern bounds of Oneida county. The taking 
possession by formal pi'oclamation, in the name of then- king, was first done by De 
Nonville, in what is now Ontario county ; and repeated at Niagara. The EngUsh 
claimed upon similar tenure, beyond where they had obtained possession by treaty. 
When the issue was pending between De Nonville and the English Governor, the Eng- 
lish had not been occupants, in anv form, of any portion of western New York. 
The French had missionary and tracling stations as low down as the Oneida castle. 
The EnKiish had, to be sure, performed the ceremony of sending agents to all the Iro- 
quois villjtgX'S, to erect poles,upon which were flags bearing the arras of theh nation ; but 
the act was so ludicrous as to excite the contempt of the natives, who generally tore 
them down, for the Iroquois acknowledged no sovereignty of either France or England, 
over them.* 

*We are free !" said Garrangula to de la Barre ; — " We were bom freemen, and have 
no dependence on Yonnondio," (the French Governor,) " or Corlear," (the English 
Governor.) 



468 APPEISDIX. 

In June, 1687, the recniits having anived from France, the French army moved up 
the St. Lawrence, and occupied the Fort at " Cataracouy." The premeditated invasion 
of the Seneca country, vpas preceded by an act of treachery and perfidy, which has 
few parallels in histoiy. The French Governor persuaded the good missionary, Lam- 
berville, who was intent only upon peace, the sendee of his King, and the success of 
his mission, to take a large delegation of Indians to his head quarters, under the pre- 
tence of holding a peace council, and reconciling all difficulties. When they were 
shut up within the fort, and completely in his power, he ordered fifty of them to be 
put in irons, conveyed to Quebec, and from thence to the galleys in France ! His ob- 
ject, as will be infen-ed,was to hold them as hostages, to give him advantage in making 
overtures of peace ; but he sadly misjudged the effect. The news of the treacheiy 
reaching the Oneidas, a French Missionary was seized and led to the stake, and was 
only saved by the intervention of a squaw, who claimed the right to adopt him as 
her son. At Onondaga, the Missionary Lambeiwille, was summoned before a council 
of chiefs, and while anticipating that his life had been forfeited by the part he had 
taken in the affair-, a chief arose and addressed him thus : — " Thou art now our ene- 
my — thou and tliy race. But we have held counsel and cannot resolve to treat thee 
as an enemy. We know thy heart had no share in this treason, though thou wert its 
tool. We are not unjust; we will not punish thee, being innocent and hating the 
crime as much as ourselves. But depart from among us ; there are some who might 
seek thy blood ; and when our young men sing their war song, we may no longer be 
enabled to protect thee." LambeiTille was furnished with an escort, who conducted 
him to the French upon the St. Lawrence. 

Previous to liis arrival at Cataracouy, De Nonville had sent presents to the western 
nations at war with the Iroquois, theii* ancient enemies, who were in alliance with the 
French, and had given orders to the commandants of the western posts to collect 
them, and repair with them and their respective commands to Niagai-a, and fiom thence 
to " Ga-ni-en-tar-a-quet," (Irondequoit.) There were at this period, French posts 
at Mackinaw, upon Lakes Superior and Michigan ; Upon the Wisconsin, the Illinois 
and the Mississippi rivers ; and never had a King or a country more devoted or faith- 
ful subjects, than were the commandants of these far off posts, dotted down, hundreds 
of mUes apart, in the wilderness. Chief among them was Tonti, whom De Nonville 
had named to the King, as "a lad of great enterprise and boldness, who undertakes 
considerable." Tonti, it will have been observed, had been the companion of La 
Salle in the primitive advent over the waters of Lake Erie. Left by his principal, 
with a handful of men at the "Fort of the lUinese," (Illinois,) he had successfully 
defended it against the assults of the Indians. He was with de la Barre, in his expe- 
dition to the south shore of Lake Ontario ; and returning to Illinois, he had been in 
search of the adventurous La Salle, to the GuK of Mexico. Under him the western 
forces were marshalled. 

By a remarkable coincidence, the anny under De Nonville, and the western French 
and Indians amved at Irondequoit on the same day, — the 10th of July. Pushing 
directly across the Lake from Cataracouy, to " La Famine Bay," the main army had 
coasted by slow stages, encamping on shore when night overtook them. Their last 
and most considerable halt being upon the present site of PulteneyVille, in Wayne co.* 

* From this period this became a prominent stopping place for French battauxmen, 
and after then] for the English Lake coasters. The species of apple tree which the 
French introduced in this region, was growing there, and there was the remains of an 
old log building, when white settlement commenced. The place was known as "Ap- 
pleboon," before its present name was conferred. 



APPENDLS. 469 

The ■western division of the army came down from Niagara by laud, pursuing the 
Indian trail upon the lake shore* Entering the Bay of Irondequoit with two hundred 
batteaux, and as many canoes. De Nonville erected a palisade fort upon an eleva- 
ted site, in which to station a small force for the protection of his water craft and 
military stores. "JS'ever had Canada seen and never perhaps will it see, a similar spec- 
tacle. A camp composed of one fourth regular fcfoops, with the General's suit ; one 
foiuth habitans,* in four battaUions, with the gentry of the country; one fourth chris- 
tiau'Indians ; and finally a crowd of all the barbarous nations, naked, tattooed, and 
painted over the body with all sorts of figures, wearing horns on theh heads, t queues 
down their backs, and armed with arrows. We could hear during the night a multi- 
tude of languages, and songs and dances in every tongue. The " Tsonnontouans," 
(Senecas,) came to reconnoitre us, and then went to burn their villages and take to 
flight. The advanced guard was 300 Christian Indians ; the Pagan savages on the 
left with three companies, 100 Ottawas, 300 Pons, (Sioux,) 100 Illinois, 50 Hurons. 
Then came the main body of four battalUons of regulars and four of mihtia ; the one 
headed by De Kourille, and the other by M. Duque." 

In the mean time the Senecas had not been idle. They were cognizant of the 
gathering of troops and j^rovisions at Cataracouy — had seen the formidable armament 
push across the Lake ; squads of them concealed in the thick woods, had watched the 
progi-ess of the French along the shores of the Lake ; and their s^^ift ranners had 
kept all the villages advised of their movements. Preparations had been made for 
the crisis : — The old and infirm, and the extreme youth, had been sent to places of 
safety ; all else, without regard to sex, had been marslialled for the approaching com- 
bat. A party of an hundred, approached the French in canoes, before they had dis- 
embarked, and hailed them in a friendly manner ; to which, as they reported, the 
French "rejahed in base language: — Enustogan horrio, squa; which is as much in 
their language, as the devil take you ! " Another scouting party approached the 
French, and received quite as uncivil an answer ; whereupon they went back and re- 
ported to the sachems, that to fight was the only alternative. 

Various accounts of the battle that ensued, have been preseiwed : — There are De 
Nonville's official report ; La Hontan's account ; the Engh.sh account derived from 
the Indians ; ancf that of L'Abbe de Belmont, in a manuscript, " History of Canada," 
recently discovered in the Royal Library of Paris. The author would seem to have 
been an eye witness, and he has faithfully, as is evident, recorded the event : 

" The march was a little hurried. The weary troops were dying with thirst. The 
day was hot. The two bodies found themselves at too great distance from each other. 
The scouts too were deceived ; for having come to the desserts, (ban-ens or plains,) they 
found five or six women who were going round in the fields. This was a lure of the 
Senecas to make them beUeve that they were all in the village. 

" The territory of Ganesara is very hiUy ; the village is upon a high hill, which is 
surrounded by three little hills or terraces, at the foot of a valley, and opposite some other 
hOIs, between which passes a large brook, which in a httle valley makes a Uttle marsh, 
covered with alders. This is the place which they selected for their ambuscade. They 

* French militia. 

tThis might be seen among the Seneca warriors as late as the war of 1812. It is 
common now among the Indians of the remote west. Directly upon the crown of the 
head a tuft of hair is bound, and trained to stand upright, terminating in a loose tuft 
or tassel 



4:10 APPENDIX. 

divided themselves, posted 300 men along the falling brook hetveen two hills, in a 
great thicket of beech trees ; and 500 at the bottom of these hills, in a marsh, among 
the alders ; with the idea that the first ambuscade of 300 men slioiild let the army pass 
and then attack them in the rear, which woiild force it to fall into the second ambus- 
cade which was concealed at the bottom of the hills in the marsh. They deceived 
tliemselves nevertheless, for as the advanced guard which M de CaUiers commanded, 
was very distant from the body under the command of the Marquis, they believed it 
was the entire army. Accordingly as the advanced guard passed near the tliicket of 
beeches, after making a terrible whoop, (sakaqua ! ) they fired a volley. 

" The Ottawas and the heathen Indians all fled. The Christian Indians of the 
mountain and the Sault, and the Abenaquis held fast and gave two vollies. 

" The Marquis De Nonville advanced with the main body, composed of the royal 
troops, to occupy the height of the hiU, where there was a little fort of piquets ; but 
the terror and disorder of the surprise were such, that there was only M. de Calzenne^ 
who distinguished himself there, and M. Duque who bringing up the rear guard, rallied 
the battallion of Berthier, which was in flight, and being at the head of that of Mon- 
treal, fired two hundred shots. The Marquis, en chemise, sword in hand drew up the 
main body in battle order, and beat tlie cU-um at a time when scai'cely any one was 
to be seen. This frightened the 300 Tsonnonouans of the ambuscade, who fled from 
above towards the 500 that were ambushed below. The fear that all the world was 
upon them, made them fly with so much precipitation that they left their blankets in 
a heap and nothing more was seen of them. 

"A council was held. It was i-csolved, as it was late, to sleep on the field of battle for 
camp. One who was stiU alive said there were 800 of them ; 300 above, and 500 
below ; and that the Goyogoaians, (Cayugas,) were to come tlie next day, which was 
the reason that they staid where they were. There were found at several places during 
tie succeeding days, provisions, and some other dead savages ; or if not dead, our men 
kUled them." 

" On the morrow we marched in battle order, wating for an attack. We descended 
the hill by a little sloping valley, or gorge, through which ran a brook bordered with 
thick busKes, and which discharges itself at the foot of a hill, in a marsh full of deep 
mud, but planted with alders so thick tliat one could scarcely see. Thei-e it was that 
they had stationed their two ambuscades, and where perhaps we would have been de- 
feated, if they had not mistaken our advaiiced guards for the whole army, and been 
so hasty in firing. The Marquis acted very prudently in not pursuing them, for it was 
a trick of the Iroquois to draw us into a greater ambuscade. The marsh which is 
about twenty acres, (aopens,) being passed, we found about three hundred wi'etched 
blankets; several miserable guns, and began to perceive the famous Babylon of the Tson- 
nontouans ; a city, or village of bark, situate at the top of a mountain of earth, to 
which one rises by three teiraces, or hills. It appeared to us from a distance, to be 
crowned with round towers, but these were only large chests, (drums) of bark, about 
four feet in length, set the one in the other about five feet in diameter, in which they 
keep their Indian com. The village had been burnt by themselves; it was now 
eight days since ; we found nothing in the town except the cemetery and grave. It 
was filled with snakes and animals, there was a great mask with teeth and eyes of 
brass ; and a bear skin with which they disguise in their cabins. There were in the 
four corners, great boxes of grain which they had not burned. They had outside 
this post, their Indian corn in a piquet fort at the top of a little mountain, steps or cut 
down on aU sides, where it was knee high throughout the fort." 



APPENDIX. 



471 



" The Tsonnontouans have four large villages, which they change every ten years, in 
order to bring therttselves near the woods, and permit theni to gi-ow up again. They 
call them Gagnsaea, Tohaiton, which are the two larger; Onuutague, and Onnenatu 
which arc smaller. In the last dwells Ganonldtahoui, the principal chief. We cut the 
standing grain already ripe enough to eat, and burned the old. It was estimated that 
w-e burnt one hundred thousand minots of old grain, and a hundred and fifty thousand 
niinots of that standing in the field, besides the beans, and the hogs that we killed. 
Sijrty persons died of wounds received in the battle, a multitude perished of want ; 
many of them fled beyond the great mountains of Onnoutague, and went to dwell in 
the country of the Andastoez. The greater part of their captives dispersed, and 
Since that time the Tsonnontouan, (Seneca) nation, which counted at least eight or 
nine hundred warriors, and ten thousand souls in aU, has been reduced to half that 
number. 

" From here, against the e.xpectations of our Indians, who believed we were going 
among the Iroquois cantons, we went to establish a Fort at Onnigara, [Niagara,] where 
we arrived after three days' journey." 

The official account of De Nonville, does not diirer materially from that of the L 
Abbe de Belmont. He says the French loss was but " five or six men killed and 
twentv wounded." He says : — " We witnessed the painful sight of the usual cruel- 
ties of the savages, who cut the dead into quarters, as in slaughter houses, in order to put 
them into the pot. The greater number were opened while still warm, that their blood 
might be drank. Om* rascally Ottowas distinguished themselves particularly by these 
barbarities,and by their cowardice, for they withdrew from the combat ; the Hurons of 
Michilimaquina did very well, but our Christian Indians surpassed all, and performed 
deeds of valor, especially our Iroquois, of whom we durst not make sure, having to fight 
against their relatives." He is quite as extravagant as de Belmont, in his estimate of the 
amount of corn destroyed.* The estimate of either is incredible; it was a new kind of war 
for the Marquis, and not much to his taste. He says to the Minister of War : — "It is 
an unfortunate trade, my lord, to command savages, who, after the first broken head, ask 
to return home, carrying home with them the scalps which they lift off like a leather 
cap; you cannot conceive the terrible efibrts I had to retain' them until the com was cut. 
] t is full thirty years since I have had the honor to seiwe, but I assure you, my lord, 
that I have seen nothing that comes near this m labor and fatigue. 

Baron La Hontan accompanied the expedition, as he was much disposed to tell the 
truth upon all occasions, his version of the general features of the battle is entitled to 
credit. He insists that the ambuscade was very successful, throwing the French into 
general disorder, and panic from which they were only relieved by a fierce assault 
of tlieir allies, the western Indians, upon the assailants. He says the loss was that of 
ten of their Indian allies, and a hundred Frenchmen. " Six days we were occupied 
in cutting down Indian com with our swords. We found in all the villages horses, 
cattle, and n multitude of swine." 

The western Indians were much chagiined at the result of the exjjedition. They 
had come down to join De Nonville, in the hope that their ancient implacable ene- 
mies, the Iroquois, were to be exterminated, when they found that the French intended 
to reti'eat withoiit visiting the other Iroquois cantons, they complained bitterly, and 
indirectly taunted them with cowardice. They spoke in contemptuous language of 
an expedition assembled at so much expense and trouble, " to bum bark cabins, which 
could be rey)uilt in four days," and destroy com, the loss of which theii- confederates* 

* A minot is equal to three bushels. 



472 APPENDIX. 

in their abundance, could easily supply. Many of them departed for home in disgust. 
Those that went with the French to Niagara, were only appeased by the promise that 
the war should be renewed. 

Before leaving the Seneca country, De Nonville took formal possosBion of it in the 
name of his king, making a pompous proclamation, in which he enumerates the villages 
of Ga-os-saeh-gwa, (upon Boughton Hill,) Ga-no-garrae, (near where the old Indian 
traU crossed the Ganargwa, in East Bloomfield,) De-yu-di-haak-do, (at the north-east 
bend of the Honeoye outlet, near West Mendon,) Dy-u-don-set, (about two miles 
south-cast of Avon.) The proclamation, act of possession, or " process verbal," says 
that the French [army " have vanquished and put to flight eight hundi-ed Iroquois 
Tfionnontouans, and have laid waste, burnt, and destroed their cabins." 

Subsequently there has apjDearcd the careful and distinct account of the battle given 
by the L. Abbe de Belmont, a larger portion of which is given in preceding pages. 
Guided by that and Mr. Marshall's pamphlet, the author has made some personal 
investigations which leads him to the conclusion that the army of De Nonville landed 
on the east side of IrondequoitBay,at what has been known as the old "Indian Land- 
ing," and pursued the old Indian trail, passed the head of the Bay, and the branch trail 
which bore off a little east of Pittsford village, and over the ridge of liighlands, descend- 
ing to Victor flats over the now fai'm of Wm. C. and Truman Dryer, near the present 
Pittsford road. 

With the different authentic accounts of the battle which we now have, the antiqua- 
rian, or historical reader, wiU have no difiiculty in identifying upon Victor Flats, Bough- 
ton HiU, and Fort Hill, the entire battle grounds. There are the places of the two 
ambuscades, the site of the " Babylon of the Tosnnontouans," the " high liill sun-ounded 
by thi-ee little hills or terri^^es, at the foot of a valley, and opposite some other hills ;" 
and mdeed, many things, evidences of identity that are conclusive. In early years of 
settlement. Brant was a guest of Jared and Enos Boughton. He traced out the site of the 
ancient Indian village, and the old French battle ground, and stated that Ms grand- 
father, who was of the Iroquois that had settled under French protection, upon the St. 
I awrence, was the pilot of De Nom-ille's army. 

Relics of the battle and of temporary French occupancy, were numerous in the 
early years of settlement, such as " bill axes," gun ban-els, and trimmings, a sdver cross 
and silver coins. As late as 1848, two five frank pieces were ploughed up on the hill 
north of Boughton Hill. A little east of the Pittsford road, near the old Indian trail, 
on the farm of Asahel Boughton, there was ploughed up a few years ago, a half bushel 

If OTE. — The precise location of the battle gi-ound of De Nonville and the Senecas, 
has been a mooted question. Mr. Hosmer has favored the conclusion that it was in 
Avon, near one of the tributaries of the Honeoye. Mr. James Speny, of Henrietta, an 
early pioneer, a man of obsen-ation, as the reader will already have obsei-ved, inclines 
to the opinion that it was on the farm of Nathan Waldron, in the north-east comei 
ot East Bloomfield. A few years since, 0. H. Marshall, of Buffalo, a close and care- 
ful investigator — an inteUig'eiit antiquarian, to whom our whole local region is far 
more indebted for early Indian and French History, than he has had credit for — trans- 
lated from the French, the Journal of De N onville, for tlie use of the New York His- 
torical Society, and to illustrate liis subject, made a tour of observation. He located 
the battle ground in Victor, traced and map]3ed the several localities alluded to in De 
Nonville and La Hontan's account of the battle ; and left little room to doubt the 
correctness of his conclusions. He was assisted in his investigations by Jacob Lob- 
dell and Wm. C. Drver. Exhibiting a map of the region to tlie venerable arid mtel- 
gent Seneca chief. Blacksmith, at Tonawanda, he traced it with his finger, and located 
the battle gi'ound as Mr. Marshall had. 



Al^PENDIX. 473 

of iron balls, about the sLze of musket balls. In the early years of settlemeut iu Victor, 
the most of Uie ii-on the settlers used, was the old French axes the plough would 
expose. 

But the inquiry arises, if the battle ground of De Nouville and the Seuecas was in 
Victor, how are the relics on the " Waldron farm," the '' Ball farm," in Avon, to be 
accounted for? The in quuy might also include the relics of French warfare, and 
Frer.ch occupancy, in Aurora, and Eden, Erie county, spoken of in the history of the Hol- 
land Purchase. The answer maybe that our history of French occupancy of the whole 
Genesee country, is as yet imperfect , but a small part of the Jesuit, Recollet and Fran- 
ciscan " Relations," during the occupancy of more than a century has as yet been dis- 
covered, unless the recent discoveries among the archives of the Jesuits in Montreal, 
and by Mr. Cass our minister at Rome, has supplied the deficiency. 



[NO. 3.] 
[extract from his excellency, gen. Washington's orders.] 



"Head Quarters, More's Hoise, Oct. 17, 1779. 

"The Commander-in-Chief, has now the pleasure of congratulating the army on the 
complete and full success of Maj. Gen. Sullivan, and the troops under his command, 
against the Seneca and other tribes of the Six Nations, as a just and necessary punishment 
for their wanton depredations, their unparalleled and innumerable cruelties, their deafness 
to all remonsb'ances and entreaty, and their perseverance in the most horrid acts of 
barbarity. Forty of their towns have been reduced to ashes, some of them large and 
commodious-; that of the Genesee alone, containing one hundred and twenty-eight 
houses. Their crops of corn have been entirely destroyed, — which, by estimation, it 
it is said, would have j^rovided 160,000 bushels, besides large quantities of vegetables 
of various kinds. Their whole country has been over-run and laid waste : and they 
themselves compelled to place their security in a precipitate flight to the British for- 
ti'ess at Niagara ; — and the whole of this has been done with the loss of less than forty 
men on our part, including the killed, wounded, captured, and those who died natural 
deaths. The troops employed in this expedition, both officers and men, throughout the- 
whole of it, and in the action they had with the enemy, manifested a patience, perse- 
verance, and valor that do them the highest honor. In the course of it, when there still 
remained a large extent of the enemy's country to be prostrated, it became necessary 
to lessen the issues of provisions to half the usual allowance. In this the troops acqui- 
esced with a most general and cheerful concurrence, being fully determined to sur- 
mount eveiy obstacle, and to prosecute the enterprise to a complete and successful 
issue. Maj. Geu. SulHvan, for his great perseverance and activity ; for his order of 
march and attack, and the whole of his dispositions ; the Brigadiers and officers of all 
ranks, and the whole of the soldiers engaged in the exj^edition, merit, and have the 
Commander-in-Chiefs warmest acknowledgements, for their important services upon 
this occasion." 

As nothing has been said of Col. Brodhead's campaign, it may be proper to state 
that on the 22d of March, 1779, Washington ordered him to make the necessary pre- 
parations for an expedition against Detroit, to throw a detachment forwaid to Kittan- 
iag, and another beyond to Venango, at the same time preserving the strictest seorecy 
as to his ultimate object. Though this expedition was soon found impracticable and 
Bbandoned, preparations were immediately made for the one, which was actually un- 
30 



474 APPENDIX. 

dertaken against the Indians at the head of the Alle£:any River, French Creek, and 
other tributaries of the Ohio. On the 11th of August, 1779, with about sis hundred 
men, including militia and volunteers, and one month's provisions. Col. Daniel Brod- 
head left Fort Pitt and began his march to the Indian country. The result was an- 
nounced by Gen. Washington to his army at West Point : — 
[^Extract from General Orders.'] 

" Head Qi:arters, More's House, Oct. 18th, 1779. 

" The Commander-in-Chief is hapjiy in the opportunity of congratulating the army 
ou our further success, by advices just arrived. Col. Brodhead, with the Continental ti'oops 
under his command, and a body of mUitia and volunteers, has penetrated about one 
Imndred and eighty miles into the Indian country, on the Allegany river, burnt ten 
of the Muncey and Seneca towns in that quarter, containing one hundred and sixty- 
five houses ; destroyed all their fields of com, computing to comprehend five hundred 
acres, besides large quantities of vegetables ; obliging the savages to flee before him 
with the greatest precipitation, and to leave behind them many skins and other articles 
of value. The only opposition the savages ventured to give our troops, on this occasion, 
was near Cuskusking. About forty of their waniors, on their way to commit barbarities 
on our frontier settlers, were met here. Lieut. Harden, of tlie 8th Pennsylvania regi- 
ment, at the head of one of our advance parties, composed of thirteen men, of whom 
eight were of our friends the Delaware nation, who immediately attacked the savages 
and put them to the rout, with the loss of five killed on the spot, and of alltheii- canoes, 
blankets, shirts, and provisions, of which, as is usual for them when going into actiom 
they had divested themselves ; and also of several arms. Two of our men and one of 
our Indian friends were very slightly wounded in the action, which was aU the dam- 
age we sustained in the whole enterprise. 

" The activity, perseverance, and firmness, which marked the conduct of Col. Brod- 
head, and that of all the officers and men, of every description, in this expedition, do 
them great honor, and their services justly etilitle them to the thanks, and to this tes- 
timonial of tlie General's acknowledgment." 

In a letter dated ""West Point, 20tli October, 1779," addressed to the Marquis de 
La Fayette, Gen. Washirgton incidentally alludes to these two campaigns, and their 
probable effects iipon the Indians. He informs Gen. La Fyette as news that may be 
interesting to him, that — 

" Gen. SuUivan has completed the entire destruction of the country of the Six Ifations ; 
driven all their inhabitants, men, women, and children, out of it ; and is at Easton on his 
return to join this army, with the troops under his command. He performed this service 
without losing forty men, either by the enemy or by sickness. Wliile the Sis Nations 
wereundor this rod of correction,, the Mingo, and Muncey tribes, livingon the Allegany, 
French creek, and other waters of the Ohio, above Fort Pitt, met with similar chastise- 
ment from Col. Brodhead, who, with six hundred men, advanced upon them at the 
same instant, and laid waste their country. These unexpected and severe strokes have 
di sconcerted, humbled, and distressed the Indians exceedingly ; and will, I am persua- 
ded, be productive of great good, as they are undeniable proofs to them, that Great 
Britain cannot protect them whenever their hostile conduct deserves it." — Writings of 
Washington, Vol- vi, p. 384. 



APPEISTDIX. 

[XO. 4.] 
PETER OTSEQUETTE. 

[from manuscripts of THOMAS MORRIS.] 



4T5 



At this ti-eaty also, I became intimate with Peter Otseqiiette, who when a boy, was 
taken to France, by the Marquis de La Fayette. He remained with the Marquis seven 
years ; he received while with him, a very finished education. Having received the 
early part of my own education in France, and being well acquainted with the French 
language, I would frequently retire with Peter, into tte woods, and hear him recite 
some of the finest pieces of French poetry from the tragedies of Corneille and Racine. 
Peter was an Oneida Indian, he had not been many months restored to his nation, and 
yet he would drink raw rum out of a brass kettle, take as much dehght in yelling 
and whooping, as any Indian ; and in fact, became as vile a drunkard as the worst of 
them. 



[NO. 5.] 

HENDRICK WEMPLE. 
[from manuscripts of w. h. c. hosmer.] 



He was the father of Mrs. Maria Berry, wife of the late Gilbert R. Berry, a pioneer 
Indian ti-ader, and settler in the valley of the Genesee. In advance of civilization, 
this remarkable man, frequently visited the Indian villages of western ISTew York — 
and sometimes extended his journies by water, in a birch canoe, manned by Indians, to 
Detroit, and thence to Mackinaw and the Straits of St. Mary's. His place of resi- 
dence was near Caughnawaga, on the Mohawk, at the breaking out of hostilities. He 
afterwards removed to the Oneida Castle. 

John Scott Quackeaboas, a kinsman, and who knew him in his boyhood, describes 
him as a man of majestic proportions, more than six feet in height, and endowed by 
nature with great personal strength and agility. His influence was great among the 
Oneidas and Mohawks, being familiar with their customs, and their superior in all ath- 
letic sports. He accompanied, by special invitation, General Herkimer and party, in 
their perilous expedition to Unadilla in 1777, and acted as intei-preter at an interview- 
between Brant and the gallant old German, on that occasion. He was also intei-pre- 
ter for Sulhvan, and in that capacity served in the gi-eat Indian campaign of 1779, 
accompanying the army in their march through a howhng wilderness, and hostile 
country, to the valley of the Genesee, where his daughter and son -in law subsequent- 
ly settled and died. My informant, Mr. Scott, of Mohawk, in Montgomery county, 
aUuded particularly to his skill as a marksman, having been his companion in many a 
hunt. He also spoke with great fluency, all the dialects of the Iroquois, besides 
having a knowledge of many western tongues. Soon after the close of the Revolu- 
tionary war, while in a forest that bordered the Mohawk, he was the unseen spectator 
of a murder, perpetrated by a Mohawk, known as Saucy Mick — the victim being un- 
conscious, at the time he received the fatal blow, of an enemy being in the neighbor- 
hood. After he returned to his home, he saddled a horse for the purpose of procuring 
process for the Indian's arrest. On his way to the magistrate's office, a few miles dis- 
tant—he stopped ata pubMc house, observing Saucy Nick standing on the steps, and 
wishino- a close watch to be kept on the murderer's movements. After the necessary 



476 APPENDIX. 

■waminf? had been given, lie "u-as abmit to leave, wlien Saucy Nick importuned him to 
treat, and insisted that Mr. Wemple should drink -^ith him. 

To lull the Indian's su.spicious, which he thought had been forcibly aroused, he drank 
•with him, and mounted his horse ; he had been in the saddle but a few minutes, when 
he was attacked Vv'ith a severe pain, and a sense of mortal sickness. With difficulty 
he dismounted, and was assisted to a bed. His tongue swelled until it protruded from 
his mouth, and the next day, after indescribable agony, he died. 

It was generally believed by his neiglibors and fiiends, that the Indian had had secret 
intelligence of the design to aiTc.st him, an'd adroitly drugged, wih some subtle poison,. 
the liquor of his unsuspecting victim. The murderer effected his escape, and joined 
his tribe in Canada. Hendrick Wemple, was buried close to Oneida Castle, on the 
north side of the turnpike, aboiit one mile from Skenandoah's resitleuce. 

In his life time he claimed a large portion of territory, afterwards bought by Judge 
Cooper, of Cooperstown, and embracing some of the best lands of Otsego county. 
He -was a descendant of Hendrick Wemple, one of the original proprietors of Schenec- 
tady — the O-no-al-i-gone of the Oneidas — and whose arms, Giles F. Yates informs 
me, may still be seen over the door of an old Dutch church, one of the most clierished 
antiquities of the city. His name is not out of place in this local work. 

He was a transient resident in this region previous to the Revolution, and many of 
his descendants are now residents of the Genesee country. 



[NO. 6.] 

OLIVER PHELPs' SPEECH TO THE INDIANS, IN ANSWER TO THEIP. 

COMPLAINT.S. 



I wish in afiiendly manner, to state to you the jjarticukrs of our bargain : — When 
I arrived at Bufiiilo creek, O'Bail, (Corn planter,) had leased all your country to Liv- 
ingston and Benton. I had bought that lease of Livingston, but I found you were 
dissatisfied, and not willing to give up your country. Although I had power to have 
confirmed that lease and have held your lands, yet I would not have anything to do 
with your lands without your voluntary consent. I therefore, to remove the lease out 
of the way, and set your minds at ease, bought so much of it of Livingston as covered 
the Seneca lands, and gave up the lease to you, making it all void ; so that all the 
Seneca lands was yours. So that by my means you got your whole country back 
again. I then came forward with a speech to you, requesting to purchase a part of 
your country. You was not willing to sell so much as I wanted, but after a long 
time we agreed on the lines. 

Brothers, you remember we set up all night. It was almost moi-ning before we 
agreed on the boundaries. After breakfast we returned to agree on the price you 
should have. Capt. O'Bail said he was willing to take the same proportion for the 
Seneca lands, that Livingston was to pay for the whole. 

[Mr. Phelps recapitulated the terms of the bargain as fixed by the referees, and 
cited the testimony of those present, in confirmation of his statement] 

After some consideration you agreed to the terras proposed, but insisted that I must 
add some cattle and some rum, to which I agreed. Brothers, you kno^^ there was a 
gi'eat many people there ; tlrey all tell alike ; they all tell one story. 

Now, brothers, I do not want to contend witi) you. I am an honest man. If you 
go to New England and enquu'e my character, you will not find mc such a rogue aa 



APPEOT)IX. 47 Y 

you represent me to be. I mean to fulfill my engagement to you. I now owe you 
one tliousand dollars for two years rent,* which I am willing to pay at any time, and 
at any place you wish. 

[NO. 1.] 
JEMIMA WILKINSON". 

[from manuscripts of THOMAS MORRIS.] 



" Prior to my having settled at Canandaigua, Jemima Wilkinson and her followers, 
had established themselves on a tract of land, purchased by them, and called the 
Friend's settlement. Her disciples were a very orderly, sober, industrious, and some 
of them, a well educated and intelligent set of people ; and many of them possessed 
of handsome properties. Slie called herself the Universal Friend, and would not 
permit herself to be designated by any other appellation. She pretended to have had 
revelations from heaven, in which she had been directed to devote her labors to the 
conversion of sinners. Her disciples placed the most unbounded, confidence in her 
and yielded in all things, the most implicit obedience to her mandates. She would 
punish those among them, who were guilty of tlie slightest deviation from her orders ; 
in some instances, she would order the offending culprit to wear a cow bell round 
his neck for weeks, or months, according to the nature of the offence, and in no in- 
stance was she known to have been disobeyed. For some offence, committed by one 
of her people, she banished him to Nova Scotia, for three years, where he went, and 
from whence he returned only after the expiration of his sentence. Wlien any of her 
people killed a calf or a sheep, or purchased an article of dress, the Friend was asked 
what portion of it she would have, and the answer would sometimes be, that the Lord 
hath need of the one half, and sometimes that the Lord hath need of the whole. Her 
house, her gi-ounds, and her farms, were kept in the neatest order by her followers, 
who, of course, labored for her without compensation. She was attended by two 
young women, always neatly dressed. Those who acted in that capacity, and enjoyed 
the most of her favored confidence, at the time I was there, weie named Sarah Rich- 
ards and Rachel Malin. Jemima prohibited her followers from maiTving; and even 
those who had joined her after having been united in wedlock, were made to sepa- 
rate, and live apart from each other. This was attributed to her desire to inherit the 
the property of those who died. 

Having discovered that bequests to the Universal Friend would be invalid, and not 
recognizing the name of Jemima Wilkinson, she caused devises to be made by the 
dying to Sarah Richards, in tlie first instance. Sarah Richards, however died, and her 
heir at law claimed the property thus bequeathed ; litigation ensued, and after the con- 
troversy had gone from court to court, it was finally decided in Jemima's favor, it ap- 
pearing, that Sarah Richards had held the property in trust for her. After the death 
of Sarah Richards, devises were made in favor of Rachel JIalin ; but Rachel took it 
into her head to many, and her husband claimed in behalf of his wife, tlie property 
thus devised to her. Among Jemima's followers, was an artful, cunning, and intelli- 
gent man, by the name of Elijah Parker ; she dubbed him a prophet, and called him 

* Purchase money in part. Mr. Phelps' use of the term "rent "must have been dic- 
tated by the consideration tliat the Indians had been talked to so much about rent, by 
the Lessees, that they would better understand him, than they would if he spoke of 
instalments of purchase money. 



478 APPEl^fDIX. 

the Prophet Elijah. He would, before prophesying, wear around the lower part of his 
waist, a bandage or girdle, tied very tight, and when it had caused the ^ijiper part of 
Ills stomach to swell, he Avould preter.d to be filled with the prophetic visions, wliich he 
would impart to the community. But after some time, Jemima and her Propliet quar- 
relled, and he then denounced her as an impostor, declared that she had imposed on 
liis credulity, and that lie had never been a prophet. After having 'divested himself 
of his prophetic character, he became a justice of the peace, and in that capacity issueu 
a warrant against Jemima, chai'ging her with blasphemy. Slie was accordingly 
brouglit to Canandaigua, by virtue of this warrant, and at a circuit court held there in 
179G, by the late Governor Lewis, Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, a bill of 
indictment prejiared by Judge Howell, of Canandaigua, then District Attorney, was 
laid before tlie Grand Jury. Judge Lewis having told the Grand Jury, that by the 
laws and constitution of this State, blasphemy was not an indictable offence, no bill 
was found. Judge Howell lias infoi-med me that a similar question having been 
brought before a full bench of the Supreme Court, that Judge Lewis' opinion was 
oveiTuled by all the other Judges, and that blasphemy was decided to be an indictable 
offence. These htigations however, liad considerably lessened the number of her fol- 
lowers, but she, as I am informed, retained until her death, her infiuence over a con- 
siderable portion of them. 

Prior to these occurrences, Jemima had been attacked with a violent disease, and 
she expected to die. Under this conviction, she caused her disciples to be assembled 
in her sick chamber, when she told them that her Heavenly Father, finding that the 
wickedness of the world was so great, that there was no prospect in her succeeding in 
reclaiming it, had determined that she should soon quit it, and rejoin him in heaven. 
Having unexpectedly recovered, she again assembled them, when she announced to 
them that her Heavenly Fatlier had again commanded her to remain on earth, and make 
one more trial. 

When I first saw Jemima, she was a fine looking woman, of a good height ; and 
though not corpulent, inclined to en bon point. Her hair was jet black, short, and 
curled on her shoulders ; she had fine eyes and good teeth, and complexion. Her dress 
consisted of a silk jjurple robe, open in front ; her under dress was of the finest white 
cambric or musUn. Round her throat, she wore a large cravat, bordered with fine 
lace. She was very ignorant, but ])ossessed an uncommon memory ; though .she could 
neitlier read nor write, it was said that she knew the Bible by heart, from its having 
been read to her. The sermon I heard her preach, was bad in point of language, and 
almost unintelligible ; aware of her deficiencies in this respect, she caused one of licr 
followers to tell me, that in her discourses, she did not aim at expressing herself in fine 
language, prefening to adopt her style to the capacity of the most illiterate of her 
hearers. 



[NO. 8.] 



In 1803, the only Post Office in aU the Genesee country west of Geneva, was. a< 
Canandaigua. To show the reader how wide a region of new settlements was em- 
braced in its circle of delivery, the author extracts from its list of advertised letters, a 
few names and their localities : — 

"Mr. Garbut, near Geneva;" "Gen. Mountjoy Bailey, Geneva;" "Wm. Bates, 
Gov. House, head of Lake Ontaiio;" Samuel Brasin, (Avor " "Mathow Clark, 



APPENDIX. 



479 



Sodus;" "Dr. Prescott, Phelpstown;" "Samuel Cobwell, Friends' Settlement;" 
"Alexander M'Donald, Caledonia;" "Nathan Fisk, Nortlifield;" "Widow Rebecca 
Reed, Pittstown ; " " Wm. Wliite, Palmyra;" "Elislia Sylvester, Lyons;" "Joliu 
Smith, Williamsburg ; " "James 0. Shennett, Potter's Town ; " " Henry Tower, Hope- 
ton;" "Solomon Hull, Jerusalem;" "David Nash, Big Tree;" "Joseph Poudry, 
Tonawanda ; " " Eliakim Crosby, Fort Erie ; " " Peter Anderson, Big Springs." 



[NO. 9.] 



The following is an abstract of the census roll of Gen. Amos Hall, a deputy marshal 
.under the U. S. census law of 1790. The author presumes that the enumeration was 
made in July and August of that year. It embraces the names of all who were heads 
of families, in all the region west of the old Massachusetts pre-emption line : * 



No. 9, 7th R. 
"William Wadsworth, 
Phineas Bates, 
Daniel Ross, 
Henry Brown, 
Enoch Noble, 
Nicholas Rosecrantz, 
David Robb, 
Nahum Fairbanks. 

No. 1, 2nd R. 
Eleazer Liudley Esq. 

Daniels, 

Samuel Lindley, 
John Seely, 
Ezekiel Mumford, 
Eleazer Lindley, Jr., 

No. 2, 2d. R. 
Arthur Erwine, 
Henry Gulp, 
"William Anchor, 
Martin Young, 
Peter Gardner, 

No. 3 (fe 4, .5th & Gth R's« 
James Headley, 
"William Baker, 
Jedediah Stevens, 
Uriali Stevens,- 
Uriah Stephens, Jr., 
John Stephens, * ' 
Richard Crosby, • 
Solomon Bennett, 
Andrew Bennett, 
John Jameson. 
No. ll,2d. R. 

Sweet, 

Ezra Phel])S. 

No, 10, 3d.R. 
Nathaniel Gorham, Jr. 
Nathaniel Sanborn, 



No. 10, 3d. R. 

John Fellows, 

Josepli Smith, 

James D. Fisk, 
* Israel Chapta, 

John Clark, 

Martin Dudley, 

Phiueas Bates, 

Caleb Walker, 

Judah Colt, 

Abner Barlow, 

Daniel Brainard, 

Seth Holcomb, 

James Brocklebank, 
Lemuel Castle, 
Benjamin Wells, 

John Freeman, 
No. 11, .3d. R. 
"-^Abraham Laphara, 
Isaac Hathaway, 
Nathan Hairington, 
John M'Cumber, 
Joshua Harrington, 
Elijah Smith, 
John Paine, 
Jacob Smith, 
John Russell, 
^ Nathan Comstock, 
Israel Reed, 
Reuben Allen. 

No. 12, 3d. R. 
Webb Harwood, 
David White, 
Darius Comstock, 
Jerome Smith. 

No. 8, 4tli R. 
Gamaliel \\ ilder, 
Epliraim Wilder, 
Aaron Rice, 
Aaron Spencer. 



No. 9, 4th R. 
James Goodwin, 
William Goodwin, 
Nathaniel Fisher, 

No. 10, 4th R. 
Ephraim Rew, 
Lot Rew, 
Matthew Hubble, 
John Barnes, 
Oliver Cha]:)in, 
Nathaniel Norton, 
John Adams, 
Michael Rodgers, 
Allen Sage, 

No. 11, 4th R. 
Seymour Boughton, 
Jared Boughton, 
Zebulon Norton, 
Ehjah Taylor. 

No. 9, .5th R. 
Gideon Pitts. 

No. 10, 5th R. 
Peregrine Gardner, 
Amos Hall, 
Benj. Gardner, 
Peck Sears, 
Samuel Miller, 
John Alger, 
Sylvanus Thayer. 

No. 12, Sth R. 
Jared Stone, 
Simon Stone, 
Israel FaiT, 
Thomas Cleland, 
Silas Nye, 
Josiah Giminson, 
Alexander Dunn, 
David Davis, 



* Geneva and the Friends Settlement on Seneca Lake, is of course not included^ 



480 



APPENDIX. 



No. 11, 5th R. 
Jonathun Rail, 
William Moorcs. 

No. 13, 5th R. 
John Lusk, 
Chamicej Hyde, 
Timothy Allen, 
Jacob Walker. 

No. 10, 6th R. 
John Minor, 
Asahel Burchard, 
Abner Miles, 
Davison. 

No. 11, 6th R. 
John Ganson, 
Philemon Winshiji, 
Alel Wilsey, 
Elijah Morgan, 
Solomon Hovey, 
John Morfijan, 
William Webber, 
William Markhara, 
Abraliam Devans. 

No. 7, 7th R. 
Niel. 

No. 9, 1st R. 
James Latta, 
David Benton, 
Samuel Wheaton, 
Rice, 



No. 9. 1st R. 
David Smith, 
Phineas Pierce, 
Esther Forsyth, 
Thomas Smitli, 
Harry Smith, 
Thomas Barden. 

No. 10, 1st R. 
Seth Reed, 
Thaddeus Oaks, 
Jonathan Whitney, 
Solomon Warner, 
Jonathan Oaks, 
Joseph Kilboume, 
John Whitcomb, 
Phineas Stevens, 
Benjamin Tuttle, 

No. 11, 1st R. 
John D. Robinson, 
Pierce Granger. 

No. 8, 2d R. 
Francis Briggs, 
Michael Pierce, 
Benjamin Tibbits, 
Henry Lovell, 
John Walford, 
William Hall, 
Arnold Potter. 

No. 10, 2d. R. 
Sweet, 



No. 10, 2d R. 
Daniel Gates, 

• Thomas Warren, 
Israel Chapin, 

Piatt, 

Day. 

West of Gknesee Riveb. 
Gilbert R. Berry, 
Darling Havens, 
David Bailey, 
William Rice, 
Gershom Smith, 
Hill Carney, 
Morgan Desha, 
William Desha, 
Horatio Jones, 
William Ewing, 
Nathan Fowler, 
Jeremiah Gregory, 
Nicholas Philips, 
Jacob Philips, 
Caleb Forsyth, 
Nathan Chapman, 
Nicholas Miller, 
Asa Utley, 
Peter Shaeifer, 
Ebenezer Allan, 
Christopher Dugan, 
Zephaniah Hough, 
Edward Harp, 
Joseph Skinner. 



Males, 728; Females, 340; Free Blacks, 7 ; Slaves, 9 :— Total population, 1,084. 



[No. 10.] 



MURDER OF MAJOR TRUEMAN. 

[statement of WILLIAM SMELLIE, OBTAINED BY CHAKLES WILLIAMSON.] 



About the 20th of May last, [1793] I left Fort Washington, in company with Majors 
Hardin and Trueman. After bearing us company 7 days. Major Hardin and his atten- 
dants took the route for Sandusky, while Major Trueman, with whom I continued, took 
the route for Au Glaize. About Bimset we fell in with two Indians and a little boy, who 
appeared friendly and asked to encamp with us, saying they would be our pilots to An 
Glaize, then about 30 miles distant. 

After having made fires, taken our supper and smoked. Major Tniemau had laid down 
and fallen to sleep. The oldest Indian asked me to ask the Major if he would have me 
or the Major's servant tied to him as otherwise the Indian boys would be afraid to sleep. 
The Major consented that his seiTant might be tied to liim, which was done. After 
which the Major covered himself all over with his blanket to keep off the musquetoes, 
and seemed to fall asleep. The Indians sat up against a log and smoked. The oldest 
Indian desired rae to lay down on a bear skin near him, which I did. Taking up his 
gun, he said, ' look, what a bad gun I have got,' and taking advantage of my head being 
turned the other way, fired, killing Major Trueman, the ball entering his left ' breast.— ■ 
The Major threw himself over on his left side, groaned and died immediately. I ran to 
a tree ; the Major's servant disengaged himself, ran, but was overtaken and brought 



APPENDIX. 481 

back. One of the Indians watched mo to shoot me, but I covered myself with the 
tree, and reasoned with liin\to sare my life. The Indian who had the Major's servant 
called to the one who had the gun to shoot as he could not hold liim. He turned and 
shot him through the heart. 

When all this was done they called me to coine to the fire, wliich I did after they had 
promised to save my life. Next morning they carried me to Au Giaize where I met 
some of my adopted relatives* and was well used. At this time there seemed to be u 
suspension of hostilities on account of Brant's going to Philadelphia. They were wai- 
ting for his answer. While I was at Bois de Bou, a great council was held to hear 
Brant's answer, whom they heard was returning ; but on his being taken sick one Mr. 
Gill brought his papers, which were opened before a great council. But as Congress 
they said, had not agreed to give up the land on the further side of the Ohio, the voice 
for war was unanimous, and a paity of 600 warriors marched immediately after to 
attack Fvrt Jefi'ersou. 

Mr. Williamson added that Smellie iuformed him that the Indians were bueily 
employed in concentrating their forces, and that tiicy expectetl to have not Ici^s than 7 
or 8000 waixiors die next year ; and that tliey were Hber.'.lly supplied by the British 
with provisions, aims and ammunition. 



[No. 11.] 
THE PULTENEY TITLE. 



Not as much as the reader will have been led to anticipate by the reference in the 
body of the work, will be given. In proceeding to the task, the author found that a 
connected historical and legal deduction of title would involve the use of too much 
space, at a stage of the work in which condensation, and the omission of much matter 
already prepared, had become necessary. So far as the validity and soundness of the 
title is concerned, now after the lapse of over half a century, when the acts of our legis- 
lature and the decrees of our courts have frequently confirmed them, and no less than 
tltree Attorney Generals of state have investigated and made reports coinciding ; the 
whole must be deemed now a settled question. Certainly, a careful pertisal of the 
whole chain of title, induces the conclusion that there are few less broken and imper- 
fect ; few instances in which through so many changes, end a long succession of years, 
a title has been so carefuUy Guarded. 

In the body of the work, the Pulteney estate is left vested in Henrietta Laura Pulte- 
ney, the daughter of Sir William Pulteney. She died in July, 1808, leaving a cousin. 
Sir John Lowther Johnson, her sole heir. He died in December, 1811 ; previous to 
which he had executed a will devising all of his real estate in America, in trust, (to be 
sold and the proceeds specifically appropriated, ) to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumber- 
land, Charles Herbert Pien-epoint, David Cathcart and Masterton Ure. In these tru£- 
tees, and theu- successors, the title now remains, in trust for two sons of George Frede- 
rick Johnstone, who was an only son of Sir James Lowther Johnstone. The heirs are 
twins, born after the death of theii- father, and are now minors, being but 1 1 years of 
age. They reside in Scotland. 

The portion of the original estate of the London Associates, which in the division, 
fell to Gov. William Hornby, is owned by his grand -children who reside in London. 



*Smellie had been au Indian captive. 



482 APPENDIX. 

[NO. 12.] 
RED JACKET — FARMER'S BROTHER — INDIAN WAR DANCE. 

[from MAKUSCRIPTS of THOMiS MOBEIS.] 



It may not be amiss to mention here, an anecdote that was told, and which was 
generally believed to be correct, as to the means resorted to by Red Jacket to become 
a Sachem. The Sachemship is derived from birth, and the descent is in the female 
line, because they say the offspring of the mother is always known to be legitimate ; 
the War-Chiefs only, are selected for bravery and merit. Red Jacket, though of 
obscure birth, was determined to become a Sachem. To effect his purpose, he announ- 
ced to the Indians, that the Great Spirit had made known to him in a dream, that their 
Nation would never prosper, until they made of him a Sachem, For some time, very 
little attention was paid to this pretended revelation ; but the dreamer artfully availed 
himself of every calamity that befel the Nation — such as an unusually sickly season, 
the small pox spreading among them, ajid attributed all the migfortimos of the Nation 
to their not complying with the will of the Great Spirit. He is said to have persevered 
in this course untQ he was made a Sachem. 

The Farmer's Brother was a tall, powerful man, much older than Red Jacket, per- 
fectly honest, and possessing, and deserving to possess, the confidence of the Nation. 
He was dignified and fluent in his public speaking ; and although not gifted with the 
brilUancy of Red Jacket, he possessed good common sense and was esteemed both by 
the white people and the Indians. 

It may not be improper here to describe a religious ceremony to which I had been 
invited, and joined in, during this treaty. It being full moon ; the ceremony was in 
honor of that luminaiy. There were present probably 1500 Indians ; we were all 
seated on the ground forming a large circle, excepting that part of it, where a fire was 
burning, and not far from wliich was a pillar or post, representuig tlae stake to which 
criminals are tied when tortured, after having been taken in battle. A very old Cayuga 
Chief, much distinguished for hid bravery, and called the Fish Carrier, rose, and address- 
ed the Moon in a speech of about a half an hour in length, occasionally, thi-owing in 
the fire a handful of tobacco, as an offering. After this sj^eecli, we all stretched our- 
selves full length upon the ground, the head of one, touching the feet of another ; 
and at one end of the circle commenced the utterance of a guttural sound which was 
repeated, one after the other, by every person present. Then followed the War-dances, 
performed by young warriors, naked to the waist band, with bodies painted with 
Btreaksof red, down their backs representing streams of blood. Occasionally one ot 
the dancers would stnke the post, representing tlie tortured priboner, and into whoso 
body he was supposed to thrust the end of a burning stick of wood. He would then 
brag of the number of scalps he had taken from those of his tribe or nation. After the 
rum diank during this ceremony, had began to produce its effect, an Oneida warrior 
struck the post, and impradcntly began to boast of the number of Indian scalps he had 
taken during the War of the Revolution, when the Oneidas alone had sided with tho 
Americans, and the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Chippewas with the British. — 
This boast excited the anger of the others, knives were drawn, and there would have 
been bloody work, had not old Fish Carrier, (who was venerated both on account of his 
age and liis bravery,) intei-posed. He arose, and addressing himself to the young war- 
riors, told them that when any of them had attained his age, and had taken as many 
scalps as he had, it would be time for them to boast of what they had done; but until then 



APPENDIX. 483 

it better became them to be silent. He then struck the post and kicked it over, and 
caused the fire to be put out, aud they dispersed peaceably. 

It was at this ceremony that I received the Indian name, by which I was thereafter 
called by them. That name was 0-tes-si-aw-ne, which was translated to be " always 
ready." Red Jacket told me that it was his name, when he was a young man; but 
when he became a Sachem, he was called Sa-go-ye-wa-ta. 

And in tliis connection the author will add an unpublished reminiscence of Red Jack- 
et, that he had from John Dixson, Esq., of Bloomfield, who gave Jasper Parrish as his 
authority. 

The Chief, it is well known, was no renowned warrior. The author, in his boyhood, 
knew him well, has often seen him in his wigwam upon the Seneca Reservation, and in 
liis frequent journeyings between his own village and the homes of his people upon the 
Genesee River. He was never popular with his own race ; his influence was acquired 
alone by the force of his superior talents ; he would govern by liis determined will and 
strong intellectual powers ; not by commanding the love or esteem of those he govern- 
ed. It was common to hear him called a coward ; indeed such was his general reputa- 
tion among his own people. But, to the reminiscence : — When the Indians retreated 
before Sulhvan, and had crossed the Canandaigua outlet, reaching the commanding 
bluff, on the west side of the Lake, Farmer's Brother insisted upon a stand, and a resis- 
tance of the invasion, but Red Jacket opposed him and insisted upon a continued flight. 
Again, at the old Indian orchard, a little south west of Canandaigua, Farmer's Broth- 
er was for standing aud giving battle, but met with the same opposition. Turning in a' 
spuit of indignation to the squaw of Red Jacket, he told her not to bear sous of which 
He was the father, for they would be the inheritors of his cowardice. 



[NO. 13.] 
SHAT'S REBELLION". 

[found among the papers of gen. ISRAEL CHAPIN.] 



Northampton, 5th December, 1796. 
General Orders for the Militia of the 4th Division, 

Whereas, the Legislature, composed of the Representatives of the good people of this 
Commonwealth, have, at their late meeting for that pui-pose, carefully and attentively 
examined our political circumstances, and the various causes, and even pretended causes 
of complaint amoncr us of late ; and have, as far as is consistent with the interest and 
happiness of the State, compUed with the wishes of every of its citizens ; and have 
among other things, prepared and published an accurate statement of all taxes that 
have been granted, and the sums paid ; also the sums that have arisen fi'om the Impost 
and Excise, and the apphcation of all monies within the State. Also the whole amount 
of our foreign and domestic federal debt, and the particular debt of tliis State. And 
have enumerated resources competent to the payment of the whole, accompanied with 
agi'eements convincing to all honest and well disposed members of society ; and finally 
have even indemnified all concerned in any uregular or riotous proceedings in any 
part of the State that none who had acted from mistaken notions of propriety and civil 
duty, might be precluded from returning to the same. 

Notwithstanding wliich, there are still some persons (so restless and abandoned to 
all sense of social obHgations and ti'anquihty and not improljably influenced by the 
clandestine instigations of our avowed and most implacable enemies) again embodying 



484 APPENDIX. 

under arms to obstruct the course of law and justice, and perhaps by one bold stroke 
overturn tbe very foundation of our Government and Constitution, and on their ruins 
exert the unprincipled and lawless domination of one man. The General, therefore^ 
from a sense of duty, and desirousto ward otf impending evils, no less than in compliance 
witli orders from his excellency, the Governor, once more entreats and even conjures 
the militia of his division, both Train Band and Alarm List, and indeed every class of 
citizens, as they prize their lives, their liberties, their prosperity, and then- coimtry, 
unitedly to exert themselves to prevent those ills which nnist otherwise inure. And 
aU officers commanding Regiments, are hereby requested and commanded immediately 
to march with all the effective men of their several regiments to Brookfield, in the 
county of Worcest«ir, and to wait fii-ther orders ; the commanders of regiments wiH 
take care that the men are furnished with arms, ammunition and accoutrements, well 
clad, and with fifteen day's provisions. The General begs that no little personal or 
private considerations may take place of the very near regard we all owe our country^ 
but that we may with one mind contribute in our several conditions to reclaim the de- 
luded, bring all high handed offenders to the punishment they so justly deserve, and 
give not only the pi-esent but future generations proof that the peace and dignity of 

Massachusetts is not to be attacked with impunity. 

WM. SHEPARD, Maj. General. 



[NO. 14.] 
LORD Dorchester's speech to the Indians. 



" Children : I was in expectation of hearing from the people of the United States, 
what was required by them ; I hoped that I should have been able to bring you together, 
and make you friends. 

" Children : I have waited long, and listened with great attention, but I have not 
heard one word from them. 

" Children : I flattered myself with the hope that the line proposed in the year 
eighty-three, to separate us from the United States, which was immediatdy bTcken by 
themselves as soon as peace was signed, would have been mended, or a new one drawn, 
in an amicable manner. Here, also, I have been disappointed. 

" Children : Since my return, I find no appearance of a line remains ; and from the 
manner in which the people of the United States rush on, and act, and talk, on this 
side; and from what I learn of theii* conduct toward the sea, I shall not be surprised 
if we are at war with them in the course of the present year ; and if so, a line must then 
be drawn by the waniors. 

" Children : You talk of selling your lands to the State of New York.* I have told 
you that there is no line between them and us ; I shall acknowledge no lands to be 
their's which have been encroached on by them since the year 1783. They then broke 
the peace, and as they kept it not on their part, it doth not bind on ours. 

"Childden: They then destroyed their right of pre-emption. Therefore all their 
approaches toward us since that time, and all the purchases made by them, I consider 
as an infringement on tlie King's rights. And when a line is drawn between us, be 

* The Caughnawaga Indians, residing near Montreal, were about this time in ti-eaty 
with Governor George Clinton, for the sale of some of their lands lying within the 
boundaries of the State of New York. The late Egbert Benson was a Commissioner 
on the part of tJie State. 



APPENDIX. 485 

it in peace or -war, they must loose all their improvements, and housei? on one side of 
it, those people must all be gone who do not obtain leave to beconie the King's sub- 
jects. What belongs to the Indians -will of course, be secured and coiitirmed to them. 
" Children : What farther can I say to you ? You are witnesses tliat oa our parts 
we have acted in the most peaceable manner, and borne the language and conduct of 
the people of the United States with patience. But I believe our patience is almost 
exhausted."* 



[NO. 15.] 

WILLIAM EWINg's LETTER TO GEN. CHAPIN WAYNe's VICTOBY. 



Geneseo, Sept. 17th, 1794. 
Israel Chapin, Esq., Sir : — Agreeable to your request, the 26th ultimo I left this 
place to go and see Capt. Brant, and bring him forward to Canandaigua if possible. 
As I passed through Buffalo Creek settlement, I was told by Red Jacket, one of the 
Seneca chiefs, that the Indians at that place, and the Six Nations in different parts of 
the country around, had not yet determined, whether they would attend the treaty at 
Canandaigua or not; that they were waiting for Capt. O'Bail (Corn planter,) and other 
chiefs to come in, whose arrival was hourly expected, when they should determine 
what answer to send to your invitation, though himself and many others, from the 
first, was determined to attend your council fire. I was also told by young Jemison, 
a Seneca Indian, that Col. Butler left that place a few hours before I arrived, who 
had been in council with the Indians some days past, and that he was of an opinion 
that Butler was trying to stop the Indians, and he did not think they woidd go to 
Canandaigua. I from this place crossed the river to ihe British side, and proceeded down 
the , river to Niagara Fort. I found the British had been mucli alarmed at Gen. 
Wayne's advancing into the Indian country. The news was that Wayne had an en- 

* The aiUlieiiticity of this speech of Lord Dorchester is denied by Chief Justice 
Marshall, and Mr. Sparks, in his Life and Correspondence of Washington, notes that 
denial without dissent. Hence it has been received as spurious, and Lord Dorchester, 
with his Government, has escaped the responsibility of having uttered such an un- 
warrantable document. The first copy was forwarded to President Washington by 
Governor Clinton, who did not doubt its genuineness. Neither did the President ; 
since, in his letter to Governor Clinton, acknowledging its receipt, he states his reasons 
at large for dissenting from the opinions of those who were proclaiming it to be spurious. 
On the-contrary, he declared that he entertained " not a doubt of its authenticity." 
Equally strong "was he in the opinion, that in making such a speech. Lord Dorchester 
had spoken the sentiments of the British Cabinet, according to his instnictions. On 
the 20th of May, the attention of the British Minister, Mr. Hammond, was called to the 
subject bv the Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, who remonstrated strongly, not 
only against the speech, but against the conduct of Governor Simcoe, who was then 
engaged in measures of a hostile character. Mr. Hammond repUed on the 22d of 
Mav, rather tartly ; and, what renders the denial of the speech by Marshall and Sparks 
tlie'more singular, is the fact, that the British Minister said in that letter : — " I am 
willing to admit the authenticity of the speech." — [See T. B. Wait ^' Son's Edition 
of Amcnr.an State Papers, vol. 1, pages 44d — 45S.] " But if doubt has exi.stcd be- 
fore, as to the genuine character of that document, it shall no longer exist. I have 
rnySLlf transcribed the .preceding extracts from a certified manuscript copy, discovered 
arnong the papers of Joseph Brant in my possession." — Aitihor of Life of Brant. 

Note. — If confirmation, other than that furnished by Col. Stone, is required, the 
papers of Gen. Israel Chapin will supply it. As superintendent of Indian affairs in this 
region, Gen. Chapin olitained authentic information of the extraprdinarj speech of Lord 
Dorchester a few days after it was delivered. — Author. 



486 APPEKDIX. 

gagement wilh the Indians, that the action commenced in what is called the Glaize, 
and that he liad defeated and completely routed the Indians, and drove them six or 
seven miles down the Miami of the Lakes, below the Fort at the rapids, built by the 
British, and that as he passed by the Fort he demanded it, but the officer in command 
of it, refused to comply with his request, and he passed on without giving any dam- 
age to the Fort. Some said there was 100 Indians, some 150, some 60 and 35 killed 
and taken, and that the loss on Wayne's side was very great, two or three hundred. 
But the best information, and what I most depended on was, I lodged at what is called 
the Chippewa Fort, at the head of the Great Falls, at the head of the canying 
place, and I overheard a Mr. Powell, who had just arrived from Detroit, relating to 
the officer the news of that country, and among the rest he told him he thought there 
was eighty or ninety Indians and white people lost in aU ; he said also there was no 
dependence to be put in the Militia of Detroit, for when Wayne was in the country 
they refused doing duty in the Fort Gov. Simcoe had called out all the Militia of 
the countiy about Niagara, it was said to man the posts through or to send up to De- 
troit, but upon hearing that Gen. Wayne had returned back to his Forts, some were 
discharged, some deserted, and about sixty were kept in BaiTacks, so that every thing 
seemed to be suspended for the present. I from Niagara Fort proceeded on to the 
head of Lake Ontario, about twenty miles from Capt. Brant's settlement, at which 
place I got certain information that Capt. Brant had set off some days past for De- 
troit. At this place I also found he had wrote you a letter the day he started, and 
that a Dr. CaiT had it, which I aftei-wards contrived to get. It was said Brant's object 
was to meet the Southern Indians at Detroit, though I believe he has taken 150 or 200 
warriors with him, but his object will be known in a future day. I returned by Ni- 
agara and Buffalo creek. I was told at Niagara, that Gen. Simcoe would set off for 
Detroit in a day or two to meet Capt. Brant and the other Indians, and to sti-engthen 
the Fort at the Miami. The 13th instant Simcoe anived at Fort Erie opposite Buffalo 
creek, and Col. McKay from Detroit met him there. The day following the Indians 
from Buffalo creek were called over to council with them. Simcoe there told them 
when he was going, and that he was going to make his forts strong, and to put more 
men in them, that if Wayne should return, he would not be able to injure them, that 
the fort at the Rapids was not strong, nor but a few men in it when Gen. Wayne came 
past it, but that he now should make it very strong, and put a gi-eat many men 
in it, so that he would be able to protect the Indians for the future ; he told them the 
Indians had lost but thirty -five warriors, and five or six white men in the last engage- 
ment with Wayne, but that Wayne had lost a great many, two or three hundred men 
supposed, and that he would not have drove them, only the Indians were not collec- 
ted. This it seems was the news Col. McKay brought, but times would soon alter, for 
the Indians were collecting from all quarters, and from all nations, that a greater force 
was already collected, and they were coming in daily, and that he observed Capt. 
Brant was gone with a number of warriors, and that the destination of the Indians 
was to give Wayne a decisive stroke, and drive them out of the country. Tliis I was 
told by one of the Indians who was at the council. The next day Simcoe and McKay 
sailed for Detroit. After this council I saw Red Jacket, and he informed me that tlie 
Indians would all go to the treaty at Canandaigua, that the next day they would go 
into council among themselves, and agree upon the time they should start, and where 
to meet you, and in two days time they should send off runners to let you know, but 
that there was not the least doubt but all the Indians would attend, but my opinion is 
it will be fifteen or twenty days before they all collect. I cannot perceive any differ- 



APPENDIX. 487 

ence iu tlic Indians at Buffalo creek, they appear as friendly as ever, and I do not 
think they wish a disturbance with the United States, were it not for the British. As 
to Brant, although he is now gone away to the South, and will not attend the treaty 
and every appearance is hostile, yet I cannot but entertain favorable ideas of his con- 
duct anil peaceable wishes towards the United States ; he acts open and candid and 
the part he is now acting, it appears to me, he is rather forced into it by the British, 
and the promises he has made to them Southern Indians heretofore, though I cannot 
but think fi-om the conversation I have had with him some time past, and what I have 
heard in many other places, but that his real wish and desire is that a peace might be 
brought about between the United States, and all the Indian nations, and that although 
he now acts in the capacity of a warrior, that he would be as willing to take hold of 
the olive branch of peace, as the bloody tomaliawk. 

I am. Sir with respect, your most obt. and most humble seiwt., 

WM. EWING. 



[NO. 16.] 
UNPUBLISHED REMINISCENCES OF RED JACKET. 



"Many years ago," snys Thomas Maxwell, Esq., of Elmira, "in conversation with 
Red Jacket at Bath, after a little fire water had thawed his reserve, the chief remark- 
ed, that when a boy, he was present at a great council fire held on the Shenandoah. 
Many nations were representetl by their wise men and orators, but the greatest was 
Logan, who had removed from the territory of his tribe to Shemokin . He was the 
son of Shikelleimus, a celebrated chief of the Cayuga nation, who was a warm friend 
of the whites before the Revolution. On the occasion alluded to. Red Jacket remark- 
ed, that he was so charmed with his manner and style of delivery, that he resolved to 
attain if possible, the same liigh standard of eloquence ; though he almost despaired 
of equahng his distinguished model. 

He said that after liis return to his then home, at Kanadesaga, near Geneva, he 
sometimes mcuri'ed the reproofs and displeasure of his mother, by long absence from 
her cabin without any ostensible cause. When hard pressed for an answer he inform- 
ed liis mother that he had been playing Logan." 

Thus in his mighty soul, the fire of a generous emulation had been kindled not to 
go out, \mtil his oratorical fame threw a refulgent glory on the declining fortunes of 
the once formidable Iroquois. In the deep and sUent forest he practiced elocution, or 
to use his own expressive language, j)layed Logan, until he cauglit the manner and 
tone of his gi-eat master. What a singular revelation ! Unconsciously the forest ora- 
tor was an imitator of the eloquent Greek, who tuned his voice on the wild sea beach, 
to the thunders of the surge, and caught from nature's altar his lofty inspiration. 

Not without previous preparation, and the severest discipline, did Red Jacket acquire 
his power of moving and melting his hearers. His graceful attitudes, significant 
gestures, perfect intonation, and impressive pauses, when the lifteil finger and flashing 
eye told more than utterance, were the results of sleepless toil ; whOe his high acquhe- 
ment, was the product of stern, habitual thought, study of man, and keen observation 
of eternal nature. 

He did not trust to the occasion alone for his finest periods, and noblest metaphors. 
In the armory of his capacious intellect the weapons of forensic warfare had been pre- 
viously poUshed and stored away. Ever ready for the unfaltering tongue, was the cut- 



488 APPENDIX. 

ting rebuke, or apt illustration. Let not the superficial candidate for fame in Senate 
halls, suppose for a moment, that Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, "The Keeper A-wake," -was a 
speaker who sprung up fully equipped for debate, without grave meditation, and cun- 
ning anticipation of whatever an adversary might advance, or maintain. 

By labor, like all other great men, persevering labor, too ~- he achieved his renown. 
A profound student, though unlettered, he found "books in the running brooks, ser- 
mons in stones." By exercising his faculties in playing Logan when a boy, — one of 
the highest standards of mortal eloquence, either in ancient or modern times — he has 
left a lesson to all ambitious aspirants, that there is no royal road to gi-eatness ; that 
the deshed goal is only to be gained by scaUng rugged cliffs, and trpading painful paths. 



[NO. 17.] 

CAPT. BRUFf's letter. 



"Niagara, Sept., 1797. 

" Dk. Sir : — Recent information, not to be disguised, assures us that emmissaiies 
have been among the Indians residing within the tenitorial hmits of the United States, 
to engage them in hostile enterprises against the posts, and from a combination of 
circumstances, it is feared that they have been too successful. 

" Accounts from Detroit say that the Indians there are very surly, and have planted 
no crops; that numbers have gone over the Mississippi, and that others have collected 
in bodies near the posts St.. Josephs, Mackinaw, and other points, whose views are 
unknown, but must be apprehended. That the French inhabitants of the post St. 
Vincent have revolted, taken the national cockade, and declared for France and Spain. 
That the attachment of these at Detroit, cannot be much rehed upon. That the 
Spaniards have not yet given up the posts, but are collected in force, high up the Mis- 
gL-^.^I^:;::. These menacing appearances ; the liostile messages to the western Indians, 
theirs to the Seven Nations of Canada, and tlieirs to the Six Nations ; the doubtful 
disposition of the latter towai-ds us ; the admonition of the Secretary of War in his 
last communication, "to use the same precautions as if the United States were actually 
at war;" with the remembrance of the deep laid schemes of Pontiac ; are sufficient 
to put us on our guard, if not to alarm us, on account of our present reduced numbers, 
and the distance from which we are to look for succor. For provided the Indians and 
those that set them on, are politic, they may so manage the attack upon the posts on 
either side, that the other 'would hesitate about giving aid that might involve the 
nation in an Indian war. 

For some weeks past, our neighbors, the Tuscaroras, have been very shy ; the few 
that have visited us are distant. There are at present about fifty warriors of Chippewa 
and Ottawa nations on the opposite shore, and a large number are ex-pected in a few 
days ; ostensibly to hold a council with the GoveiTior about supplies. Those already 
arrived have been importunate for aims and ammunition, and I understand have ob- 
tained a gun each." 

[Capt. Bruff closes his long letter with some account of the indefensible condition 
of Fort Niagara, and suggestions to as keeping watch of the Indians, and other precau- 
tionarj' measures.] 



[NO. Ifi.] 
On his return to England, John B. Church having been a decided partizan in the 



APPEITDLS. 489 

Revolution, and moreover, having connected himself by marriage, -mth so notorious a 
"rebel" family as the Schuylers. found himself not in repute with the liigh tory par- 
ty, and had especially the disfavor of his pati-on uncle. Foiiunately, however, the 
American adventiu-er was as independent in his purse as in his politics, and soon grew 
in favor with Fox and Pitt, and then party. He was elected a member of the British 
Parliament, from Wendover, warmly espoused the hberal party, and adhered to Mr. 
Fox, when it was said in decision that "his party could go to the House of Commons 
in a hackney coach." 

The countiy residence of the family was but four miles from Windsor Castle, and 
tlie family physician was the physician of George the Third. Long before it transpir- 
ed publicly, the physician informed Mr. and Mrs. Church of the King'e aberration of 
mind, and he did not hesitate, confidentially, to attribute the developeraeut of heredita- 
ry tendency, to the loss of American Colonies. 

The house of Mr. Church in London was a frequent resort of Fox and Pitt ; of pro- 
minent Americans who visited London ; and on the breaking out of the French Rev- 
olution, when the refugees fled to London, he had as guests, Talleyrand, and many 
of his companions, with most of whom he had become acquainted in America and 
Paris. Judge Church speaks of the happy faculty of the French to be gay and light 
hearted even in the dai'kest hours of adversity. The men who had fled from what M. 
A. Thiers calls Vhe "Sanguinary Republic of '93" — from the rack and the guillotine 
— statestnen and courtiers — stiipped of their possessions and dependent upon the 
purses of theii- friends for the means of subsistence ; were yet cheerful and seemingly 
happy, seeking ainusements, and endeavoring to make'duU and smoky London as gay 
as their own devoted capital had been. 

In Paris, Judge Church had made the acquaintance of Talleyrand, and it was by 
means of the assistance he rendered him that the refugee Minister was enabled to reach 
tins country, when the British Ministers had ordered him to leave London in twenty- 
four hours. Aftei-wards, when he had returned to Paris, and was flourishing again under 
a new dynasty, he remembered the kindness, but the demonstrations of his gratitude 
were marked with the peculiar characteristics of the man. John Church, a son of liis 
benefactor, having taken up his residence in Paris, received from him a general invitation 
to all his evening paiiies, and besides, an invitation that at his weekly dinners there was 
always a "knife, fork, and plate for him." This had contmued for a while, when the 
welco3ie guest, discovered that some change had come over his host ; — coldness and 
reserve had taken the place of cordial welcomes. An explanation followed. One evening 
as Mr. Church entered his apartments,TaUeyi-and beckoned him to a deep window recess 
and whispered : — " Mr. Church, I am always happy to see you, but you must not feel 
unpleasantly if I pay no attention to you ; I am so watched that I cannot be civil to 
any person from England or America." The anecdote will be adjudged in good 
keeping with the whole character of the man. 

Judge Church relates many anecdotes which illustrates the iU feehng that prevailed 
in England, after the Revolution, and especially pending the Jay treaty, to every 
thing that was American. His school-feUows at Eaton, were generally the sons of the 
nobility, and of high tory blood, and then boy partizanship could hardly tolerate the 
sentiments of a representative of the disenthralled colonies. French politics was soon 
inti-oduced, and the young American, following the l^ad of his fjxther, was inclined to 
be a French republican ; manifesting upon one occasion a little exultation over the fate 
of Louis XVI, he provoked the bitterest resentments of his school-feUows. 

When the family left London, in '97, there was employed about the King's home- 
stead, a young Frenchman, in the capacity of a cook or confectioner. He had made 
31 



490 APPEISTDIX. 

hi m self obuoxious to the toiies by his ultra Fj-ench republicaBism, and -n^ould sing 
snatches of French revolutionary ballads, in the very precincts of royalty, and at the ale 
houses. Some official of the'King's household quietly anvinged his employment by Mr. ■ 
Church, and he came to America with his famiJy ; afterwards, establishing himself as a 
confectioner in New York. He was the father of Godey, the founder of Godey's Maga- 
zine, in Philadelphia. 

Most readers arc famiHar with the attempt of Dr. BoUraan and Huger to release La 
Fayette from the prison of Olmutz. The daring adventurers reacliing Loudon, made 
acquaintance of John B. Church, who had known La Fayette when a guest at liis fath- 
ci--iii-law's house, in Albany, in other places during the Revolution, and afterwards in 
Paris and London ; and feeling a lively interest in the project for his release, he at once 
seconded it ; in his house, in London, the plan was matured, and he contributed means 
for prosecuting it.* 

Judge PhiUp Chureh bears upon his person a relic of the Border Wars of the Revolu- 
tion ; a slight scar ujwu his foreliead ; connected with which is an interesting historical 
reminiscence, cUflferent versions of which have already been incorporated in history. In 
August, 1797, a scheme was devised by Sir Frederick Haldimand, the Biitish comman- 
der, in Canada, to secure Gen. Schuyler at Albany, and by getting possession of him, 
remove the powerful influence he was exercising against the success of the banded 
British tories and Indians. John "Waltemeyer, a tory refugee was entrasted with the 
command of the expedition. With a gang of tories, Canadians and Indians, he crossed 
tJie St. Lawrence, and reached the pine plains between Albany and Schcnectad}^ where 
tliey lurked about for several days until they could ascertain the precise position of 
General Schuyler's mansion, which stood upon the banks of the Hudson, about three- 
fourths of a mile from the then settled portions of Albany. Attempts having been 
previously made upon Ids life, he had a good supply of arms, and a pretty strong body 
guard of servants. He had beside reliable information that Waltemeyer and liLs paity 
were in the neighborhood, and well imagined their en'and. 

With reference to defence, the house was so arranged, that at night the only access 
was in the rear, and tliat was barred by an hon gate, wliich was kept locked. Sit- 
ting with his numerous family in the main hall, in a sultry evening, a servant came and 
infoiTued him that a man was at the gate wishing to speak to him. In reply to the 
question as to where the man came from, the seiTant replied that he " thought he came 
do'UTi the hill from the woods." The moment the General heard this, he ordered all 
tlie lights to be extinguished, the servants to arm themselves, and the family to retreat 
to the garret. Unfortunately, Mrs. John B. Church, the day previous, seeing that ha- 

* When La Fayette visited Rochester in his American tour, a member of the commit- 
tee of reception was introducing the ladies as they one after another, in quick succession, 
presented themselves. In the crowd was a daughter of Judge Church. As she 
approached. La Fayette addressed the committee man, saying : — " Sir, you need not 
introduce this young lady, she is a descendant of my old friend Angehca Scliuyler ;" 
[wife of Gen. Philip Sehuyler,] at the same time advancing and sliaking her cordially 
fcy the hand. This was the recognition of a family resemblance after the lapse of over 
forty years ! This is almost incredible, and yet the author witnessed in the Nation's 
guest, similar instances of liis extraordinary recognition of persons, and family resem- 
blances. In a letter to Judge Church, dated at La Grange, in 182G, he alludes to the 
circumstance : — " Happy I am in the opportunity to remind you of llie old friend of 
your beloved parents ; to present my respects to Mrs. Church, doubly dear to ray most 
precious recollections ; and to your amiable daughter whom a friendly image engraved 
on viy heart, made me recognize before she was named to me. 

Your affectionate friend, LA FAYETTE." 



APPENDIX. 



491 



infant son, (tlie present Judge P. Church) was meddhug with the muskets, had them 
removed to a back closet or entry. Gen. Schuyler, looking out at the window, saw- 
that his house was siuTounded by armed men, and immediately posted himself with 
the servants at the foot of the stau-s, with the best defences they could lay their hands 
on ; resolved at least to protect the family. The banditti sooa forced an entrance into 
the liouse. At this juncture. Miss Margaret Schuyler, (afterwards the wife of Gen. 
Stephen Van Rensselear,) discovered that her infant sister had been left asleep in a 
cradle upon the ground floor. Rushing down stahs, and passing her father, against his 
remonstrances, she seized the child and was passuig the beseigers, when Waltemeyer 
mistaking her for a seiTant maid, demanded of her — " Where is your master 1" "Gone 
to call the guard," she replied with great presence of mind, as she made a safe retreat 
with the child. Presuming that the chief object of the visit had escaped, they com- 
menced plundering the house, and were in the dining room securing the plate. Three of 
the sei-vants had possessed themselves of ai-ms, and Gen. Schuyler having his side arms, as 
good a resistance was made as then- strengtli would admit, but the superior force finally 
obliged all to retreat to the upper rooms of the house. Waltemeyer and his party pur- 
sued, and just as they were about to make prisoners of the whole famUy, Gen. Schuy- 
ler hit upon an ingenious and successful exj^edient. Suddenly raising a window, aa if 
a host had come to his rescue, hallowing out to the evening air, in a loud voice, there were 
no friends to hear : — " My friends, my friends, quickly, suiTOund the house and lot not 
one of the rascals escape !" The banditti were panic stricken, ran down stairs, sweep- 
ing the silver fi-om the side board as they passed, and hmrying off with them in their 
retreat to the woods as captives two slaves, — the first armed rescue perhaps, of "per- 
sons held to service," that ever transpired in this State. No one was killed in the 
melee ; Waltemeyer received a slight wound from a pistol shot of Gen.. Schuyler, a 
servant was slightly wounded. The shght injuiy of tlie child, named in the inti'oduc- 
tion, was had in the hunied retreat to the garret. 

The faUure of Gen. Schuyler to bring to his aid any of the then few citizens of the 
village of Albany, was owing to a most ingenious contrivance of Waltemeyer. During 
his ambush m the woods, he had come across a woman, whom he bribed to precede 
him in his attack and report, in the village that there was a dead man in the woods, 
off in another direction from Gen. Schuyler's house. The trick succeeded. When the 
alarm was given the men of the village were away searching for the dead man. 

In his retreat, Waltemeyer and his party took General Gordon from lais bed, at 
Ballston, and carried him to Canada, 

]*f OTE. — The author gives the account form memorandums taken in conversation 
with Judge Church. He had the account from his mother in 1825. The relation does 
not vary mateiially from the account of Col. Stone, in liis Life of Brant ; except that 
he states that in addition to the seiTants of the house. Gen. Schuyler had a body guard 
of six men, three of whom were on duty. Col. S. gives their names, and says that 
Gen. Schuyler afterwards gave each of them a fai'm in Saratoga county. Gen Schuy- 
ler died in 1805. 

A writer in the Albany Express, a few years since, speaking of the old Schuyler 
mansion in Albany, says : — " Here also the illustrious Hamilton, weed and won the 
daughter of its hospitable proprietor, thaft venerable and excellent woman, who still 
hves in the full enjoyment of her intellectual faculties, one of the few remnants of the 
Revolutionary age. Another daughter of Gen. Schuyler, a lady of great beauty and 
accomplishraents, was also manied in this house, to John B. Church, of London, who 
came out to this country during the Revolution. Among its illustrious guests have 
been : — Wasliington, La Fayette, Louis Phillipe, Lwdi 'sterling, Talleyrand, Chaute- 
briand, and Chastelleux," 



492 APPENDIX. 

[NO. 19.] 

MR. JAMES D. BEMIS' COTEMPORART ACCOUNT OF HIS ADVENT TO THE 

GENESEE COUNTRY. 



Extract of a letter to Mr. and Mrs.- Daniel Ward, of Albany : — [Mrs. Ward was a 
sister of Mr, Bemis, -was the mother of Samuel and Henry Ward, and Mrs. Oran 
FoUett.] 

"After being at Utica upwards of seven weeks, my patience was so far exhausted, 
that I determined, uotwithstiiuding the badness of the roads to make one more attempt 
to gain the place of my destination, and accordingly hired two wagons to take me to 
Cauandaigua. They had proceeded about 50 rods when one of them got mired to the 
hub ! Good start, you will say. Well, we got out in about an hour, and travelled 
eight miles the first day, and put up at Raymond's inn. Next morning after taking a 
warm breakfast, I agarii iceighcd anchor, and taiidged in solitude along the muddy 
waste, (for it is indeed solitary to have no company but swearing teamsters,) 'till we 
reached Oneida village, an Indian settlement, where about dark, both wagons again 
got mked to the hub ! Zounds and alack ! What a pickle we were in ! ! How did I 
invoke the aid of old Hercules to give one tug at the wheel ! However, after lifting, 
grumbling, hollowing and tugging three hours and a half, with the assistance of 
an Indian, we once more got on land. It was now ten, and no tavern within our power 
to reach. Cold, fatigued and hungry, we were glad to get under shelter ; and accor- 
dingly stopped at the first Indian hut we found, where there was no bed, nor victuals, 
except a slice of rusty pork." * * * * ####* 

"After a night spent in yawning, dozing, gaping, Ave again got under way, and hove 
in sight of a tavern about ten o'clock ; but nothing like breakfast was to be had — all 
confusion — and we went on to Onondaga, (50 miles irom Utica,) where we arrived 
about ten at night. Here the house was full, and I obtained the privilege of sleeping 
with two strangers, by paying for their lodgings and giving them a glass of bitters ; 
an odd bargain to be sm-e ; but I thought it cheap, had it been my last shilling. But 
fate decreed that the troubles of that day, should not end with going to bed." * 

***** [The young adventurer had become a room mate 

with a " snoring ti'aveller ." He descaibes his enormous nose, and says, tliat tlie sounds 
it gave out all night long, "frightened MoiidIicus from his post."] 

" At this place, (Onondaga) the wagoners got discouraged and dispaired of the 
practicability of travelling ; they accordingly stored their goods and made the best of 
then- way home again. Here I was obliged to remain two weeks, wlien a fine snow 
falling, I hired a man with a tliree horse sleigh, to carry me to Canada, and anived at 
tliis place on Saturday evening, 14th January, after a short and pleasant passage of 
SIXTY TWO days from Albany ! Here I put up for the night only, expecting to depart 
eiu'ly in the morning for Canada ; but receiving some advices here from gentlemen of 
respectibility, which deserved my attention, I was persuaded to open my store in this 
village, for tlie winter at least. How I shall succeed is yet among the secrets of fate ; 
but as yet I have had no reason to repent of having stopped here ; for such is the en- 
couragement I have already found, that I think it probable I shall continue here." 

" I have now only room to add, that the countiy is beautiful and flourishing ; the 
inhabitants wealthy and respectable ; the citizens enlightened, affable and friendly ; 
and there is an agTeeable society of young people, especially of ladies. Hence a 
stranger finds an agi-eeable reception. I am the seventh young man that is here from 
Albany ; all old acquaintances." 



SUPPLEMEIT, 

OR 

EXTENSION OF THE PIONEER HISTORY 

OF THAT PORTION OF PHELPS ASB GORHMI'S PURCHASE EM- 
BRACED IN THE 

COUNTY OF MONROE, 

AND THE NORTHERN PORTION OF MORRIS' RESERVE. 



CHAPTER I. 



WHEATLAND. 



That portion of the old town of Caledonia which is now Wheat- 
land, was, as will have been observed, the Pioneer locality — the 
spot where settlement first commenced in all the region between 
the Genesee River and the west bounds of the state. In connection 
with the enterprises of Mr. Williamson, the advent of the Scotch 
settlers, and in another connection in the body of the work, the 
town has already been embraced. It remains in this connection to 
extend the notices of Pioneer advents in that locality, as far as the 
author's information will allow. 

Francis Albright came in 1799, from Seneca county, and soon 
erected the mills'that bear his name, and those that were so useful 
to the early settlers west of the River. He removed to the Lake 
shore, in Niagara county, in an early day, where he died a few years 
since. His son Jacob Albright, one of the most successful and en- 
terprising farmers of that county, resides at Olcott. 

Donald M'Vean, who came a single man with the first Scotch 
settlers, was a mill wright ; had charge of the early mills built by 
the Wadsworths at Conesus. He erected the first mill in Scotts- 
ville ; and selling it, purchased a large tract of land which he divi- 
ded between his sons ; they are Uonald M'Vean, of Michigan, 
Duncan and Peter M'Vean of Caledonia. Mrs. Donald and Mrs. 
Joseph Campbell, and Mrs. James Cameron, of Caledonia, are his 
daughters. 

John M'Naughton has been named as one of the advance corps 
of Scotch emigrants, in 1799. He still survives at the age of 80 
years. His surviving sons are : — Duncan M'Naughton of Mum- 
ford and Daniel M'Naughton, a resident upon the homestead ; Mrs. 
Duncan M'Vean of 'Scottsville, and Mrs. Merrit Moore, of Church- 
ville, are his daughters ; an unmarried daughter resides with her 

l^oTE. — Previous to leaving their homes in Scotland, certificates similar to the fol- 
loTviug, -tt-ere given to aU of the Scotch emigrants who were members of the kirk ; 
such at least, as were from Perthshire ; and it was worthily bestowed in this instance, 
as a long and useful hfe will bear witness : — 

" These do cei-tify that the bearer John M'Naughton, and his spouse, Margaret M' 
Dermid, are natives of this our parish of KiUin ; and lived therein nrostly from their 
infancy ; and always behaved in theii- single and married state, virtuously, honestly, 



% 

496 PHELPS AISTD GOEHAJM'S PURCHASE. 

father. The mother died in 1844. Mr. M'Naughton established 
the first brewery west of the River, previous to 1810, and a distil- 
lery which was the next one after that built by Oliver Phelps near 
Moscow. He was one of the first to engage in the purchase of 
wheat to be floured for the Canada market ; commencing the busi- 
ness previous to the war of 1812. 

Zachariah Garbutt was a resident upon the river Tyne in England. 
in the town of Winston, county of Durham, at the period of the 
French Revolution. Espousing the whig side in politics in those 
violent party times in England, when freedom of speech was re- 
stricted, he subjected himself to proscription and persecution at the 
hands of his more loyal neighbors. His windows were broken in 
and his children stoned in the streets. Leaving Winston, he went 
into a retired part of the country, where he remained for three or 
four years, and then sought an asylum over the ocean in a land of 
toleration, of political and religious liberty. Borrowing thirty 
guineas to defray expense of emigration, it was repaid by his son. 
John Garbutt, with money earned upon a shoe bench, imd remitted 
to England. Arriving at New York in 1798, they remained near 
Sing Sing until 1800, when they came to the Genesee country, set- 
tling first upon sixty acres of land in the town of Seneca. The 
eldest son John, in 1803 purchased land on Allan's creek, which 
soon became the residence of the whole family — the site of what 
is now known as Garbutville. The three brothers, sons of Zach- 
ariah Garbutt, were, John, Philip and William. John Garbutt 
who still survives, was the first supervisor of Wheatland ; in 1829 
he was a representative of Monroe county in the Legislature. 
Philip Garbutt, widely known in business enterprises, the owner of 
the mills and locality that bear the name of the family, also 
survives. His wife, as will have been seen, is the daughter of Esq. 
ShaefTer. The father-in-law was the original owner of the mill site 

and inoffensively ; free from all public scandal known to us. That therefore Tve know 

of no reason to "hinder their reception into, or residence in, any congregation, society 

or fanuly, where God may cast their lot. * * *** * * # * *» 

[A. few closing lines are obliterated.] 

" Signed. 

Hugh M'Dougal, Minister, 
Jamks M'Xabb, Elder, 
Jas. M'Gibbin, Parish Clerk." 
" The above is fact 

Chas. Campbell, Esq. of Lock Dorcht, 
Francis M'Nabb, chief of M'E"abbs. 
John RoBsoN, Baron, Bailie to the Earl of Bradalbine." 
Dated Feb. 1798. 

" Do me the favor to name the fact," said an early merchant of the Genesee country 
to the author, " that when reverses came upon me, and I was thi-own upon jaU limits, 
while those who owed me debts of gratitude stood aloof ; a generous hearted Scotch 
farmer, -whom I had but slightly known, in the way of business, sought me out, kiudly 
invited me to share his pm'se for all that was necessary for the comfort of myself or 
family. And you may add that it was John M'K'aughton, of Wheatland." 



PHELPS AISID GOPvHAM's puechase. 497 

of what is now known as Garbutt's mills and the land upon which 
the celebrated plaster beds are located. A saw mill was erected by 
Esq. ShaefFer in 1810 and a grist mill in 1811. 

The venerable Powell Carpenter, now in his 80th year, became 
a resident in the immediate neighborhood of Scottsville in^ 1804. 
In 1818, by purchase from Isaac Scott, he became the proprietor of 
most of the site of the present village of Scottsville. In 1825 or '6, 
Abraham Handford and Judge Carpenter created a water power by 
conducting the waters of Allan's creek in a race, U mile, and thus 
obtaining a fall of 19 feet. This was the commencement of any 
considerable movements towards the founding of the pleasant and 
prosperous village ; though mills had been erected as early as 1815 
by Donald M'Vean and Abraham Handford. Often sons of Judge 
Carpenter, six are now living, three of whom were Pioneers in 
Michigan. Ira Carpenter, of Scottsville is his son. He was one of 
the early Judges of Monroe. 

The Rev. Donald Mann was a native of Invernesshire, Scotland ; 
emigrated, settling on the 40,000 acre tract in Caledonia, in 1809 ; 
in 1815 removed to what is now Wheatland, where he now resides. 
He had been educated in his youth for the ministry, in the Baptist 
connection, but located in the new region, he united the labors of the 
field, (or rather, the forest,) with the duties of his profession ; provi- 
ding for the respectable maintenance and education of a large family, 
and at the same time itinerating occasionally where primitive and 
feeble church organizations needed his services. " When we had 
got together a small Baptist congregation in Le Roy," says an in- 



IfoTE. — Tlie discovery of the plaster, -which has proved so vahiable an acquisition 
to a wide region— the beds possessing more of what constitutes real value than if they 
had been the richest placers that have been found upon the slope o f the Sierra 
Nevada — may not be considered an uninteresting reminiscence : — It was accidental. 
As the grist mill di-ew near to completion in the winter of 1810, '11, Mr. John Garbut 
went to Cayuga for a load of plaster, with the jDromise from Esq. Sliaeffer that it 
sliould be ground in the process of preparing the miU stones. In Ids absence, while 
some workmen were excavating the bank to procure earth to finish the embankment 
of the mill race, one of them, a foreigner, insisted that they were excavating plaster. 
Experiments followed wliich proved the fact. The demand for it bemg but limited, 
farmers having been slow in appreciating its value, its manufactm-e was not fairly 
under way until 1818 ; since which it has been constantly upon the increase and 
the beds would seem exhaustless. 

IfoTE. — Judge Carpenter emigrated from Westchester county as early as 1794, loca- 
ting in company with William Armesley, near Cashong creek, on Seneca Lake. Major 
Benjamin Barton was then residing at Cashong in a log cabin, the successor there of 
Debartzch and Poudry, Samuel "Wheaton had been in the neighborhood for three 
or four years. After making a little openijig in the forest, and building a pole cabin. 
Judge Cai-penter went to Pennsylvania aiid'brought a small stock of funiiture, and a 
youiig wife into the wilderness. Coming up the'Susquehannah he worked their pas- 
sage on a Durliam boat, crossed over to Catherinestown, and came down the Lake to 
Cashong in a batteau. The wife that he moved into his primitive cabin, as well as 
himself^ are among the few suiwiving Pioneers of that early period. There are prob- 
ably not twenty persons living who were adult emigrants to the Genesee countiy 
previous to 1795. 



498 PHELPS AND GOEHAJi's PUECHASE. 

formant of the author, " the Rev. Mr, Mann used to come up on 
foot and preach for us." The surviving sons are : — Alexander 
Mann, who was a graduate of BurHngton College, Vt., studied law 
in the office of Edwards & Mann, New York, settled in practice in 
Rochester, and changing his profession, is now the highly respecta- 
ble and successful editor of the Rochester American ; — Angus C. 
and Peter Mann, of Wheatland ; Duncan C. Mann, of Rochester ; 
Donald Mann, ofNew York. There are four unmarried daughters. 
The mother, who still survives, is a daughter of the early Scotch 
emigrant, Angus Cameron. 

In 1806, '7, 8, Harris Rogers, George Goodhue, Joseph Black- 
mer, John Sage, Elial Goble, Peleg Weaver, Marvin Cady, Seely 
Frink, settled in what is now Wheatfield. Mr. Rogers died in 1821, 
aged 48 years. Mr. Goodhue, w^as a settler at Painted Post and 
Canisteo as early as 1793, and as will have been seen, was one of 
the earliest in that Pioneer locality, Braddock's Bay. In 1806 he 
removed to Wheatland, where he now resides with his son, John 
Goodhue, at the age of 82 years, surrounded by a large circle of 
descendants. Mr. Sage, died a few years since in the 72d year of 
his age ; his son, Martin Sage, and Warren Sage occupy the home- 
stead. Mr. Goble was a resident of Seneca county as early as 1800 ; 
he died in 1813; Nathaniel Goble of Wheatland, is his son. Mr. 
Frink had settled in Westmoreland, Oneida county, previous to 
1811 ; he died in Wheatland of the prevailing epidemic in 1813, as 
did also his wife ; Ephraim Frink, of Wheatland is his son. 

It was but a following up of pioneer enterprise with Joseph 
Balckmer, when he setded in Wheatland in 1808. We have already 
had glimpses of him upon the very verge of civilization, in Oneida 
county, when settlement was first commencing in the Genesee 
country — in 1788 and '9. The earliest Pioneers often speak of his 
hospitality, when his log house w-as the only white habitation be- 
tween Judge Dean's, in Westmoreland, and Colonel Dantorth's, at 

jfoTE. — Mi\ Goodlrae made his early advent to this region, from Canisteo, ■with 
liis family and household goods, upon an ox sled ; consuming sis days in the journey ; 
in several instances carrying his goods by hand over ■windfalls. Aniving at tlie Gen- 
esee river, ■ndiere Rochester no^w is, in the month of February, he found the ice tha-wed 
a^way from the banks, to the distance of 15 or 16 feet. He had to erect a temporary 
bridge to get upon the solid ice. Approaching the opposite shore, the same difficulty 
existed there ; or at least the ice ■was rotten. Unyoking his oxen, in endeavormg t» 
drive them across they broke in and came near being dro'wned. Reaching the oppo- 
site shore, his ■wife, sled, and effects, being yet on the solid ice, to get them over, he 
■went to -work to make a bridge ; but ■while thus engaged tlie section of ice upon ■which 
they -were, broke off^ and -was moving ■with the current, hkely to be precipitated over 
tlie Falls. Seizing a pole and thro-wing it to his ■s\ife, she fastened one end of it to 
the sled, and hitching his oxen to the other end of it he to-wed the ice to the shore and 
thus succeeded in sa^ving his -wife and household effects. In a icvf moments the cake of 
ice from -which they had been extricated, ■went over the Falls ! Stopping for a day 
or t'wo at the cabin near the site of the old Red Mill, he bro^wsed his cattle upon the 
site which is no^w the centre of the city of Rochester, and then ■went thi'ougli the 
•woods road the Atchinson's had made, to Braddock's Bay. 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHAJi's PUECHASE. 499 

Onondaga. In a letter from John Taylor, a State Indian agent, to 
Gov. George Clinton, in 1778, it is mentioned that in co-operation 
with Oliver Phelps, he had made provisions for opening a road from 
Onondaga to Oneida, and that Mr. Blackmer had contracted to do 
a portion of the work. He was a native of the town of Kent, 
State of Connecticut, and may truly be said to have been of a 
Pioneer stock, as he was a descendant of Peregrine White, the first 
born of white parents, in New England. He died in 1848, aged 
80 years. He was public spirited, enterprising, as the reader will 
infer, a good neighbor, and an efficient helper in all that was tend- 
ing to the prosperity of his locality. He donated from his farm the 
site for a meeting house, school house and burying ground. Jirah, 
Ephraim, and Oliver P. Blackmer, of Wheatland, are his sons. 
Daughters became the wives of Jesse Kinney, of Michigan ; of 
Jerry Merrill, of Orangeville, Wyoming county. 

Deacon Rawson Harmon was a native of New Marlborough, 
Berkshire county, Mass. ; he was a resident of Madison county 
previous to 1797 ; in 1811, he removed to Clarence, Erie county, 
but soon changed his residence to Caledonia, now Wheatland. At 
that period he had six sons and five daughters, nine of whom are 
yet living, viz : — Ariel, Rawson, Ira, Sylvester, Anan and Elisha 
Rawson, all residing upon and in the neighborhood of the home- 
stead ; Mrs. Horace P. Smith, Mrs. James R. Flynn, and Mrs. 
Oliver P. Blackmer. The living descendants of Deacon Harmon 
are, 9 in the first degree, 52 in the second, and 17 in the third. He 
died in 1850, aged 85 years. 

Calvin Armstrong and George H. Smith, were residents in 
Wheatland as early as 1812. Mr. Armstrong, now 70 years of 
age, has recently changed his residence to tlie neighborhood of 
Bushville, Batavia, having become the owner and occupant of the 
well known Pendell farm. Mr. Smith died in Wheatland, at ad- 
vanced age ; he was a native of Germany ; Daniel Smith, of Wheat- 
land, is his son. 

The Baptist church in Wheatland, was organized as early as 1811. 
Of all the original members of it, none survive but Jirah Blackmer, 
who has been a Deacon and Clerk in it for 40 years. Its settled 
ministers have been: — Solomon Brown, Ely Stone, Aristarchus 
Willey, William W. Smith, Horace Griswold, John L. Latham, 
Daniel Eldrige, John Middleton, Gibbons Williams, Hiram R. 
Stimpson, and Wm. W. Everts. 

In observations made in connection with Pioneer history, the 
author has been frequently reminded of the benefits that have 
accrued from the early institution of public libraries. The books 
were selected at a better era of our literature, of book making, than 
the present one ; before a surfeit of the worthless trash that now 
unfortunately too much prevails in our popular reading ; they were 
thoroughly read, and thoroughly understood ; the Pioneers became 



500 PHELPS AND GORHAll's PURCHASE. 

intelligent, and inducted their sons and daughters into a course o^ 
profitable reading. The general intelligence of the citizens of all 
of the old town of Caledonia, has been proverbial ; they enjoyed the 
benefits of a well selected library, as early as 1804. It was the 
Pioneer Library west of Genesee river. The first books were 
bought at Myron HoUey's book store, in Canandaigua, by John 
Garbutt, who carried them to their destination on his back. Peter 
Shaeffer was first Librarian. The library now consists of over 
1500 volumes. 

[Farther reminiscences of Scotcli settlers, having reference to the old toAro of 
Caledonia, will be inserted in the volume, " Livingston and Allegany." The author 
has found it difficult to separate them as town and county divisions have done.j 

In addition to their purchase of the " Big vSprings," and water 
power at Caledonia, of Mr. Williamson, in early years, John 
and Robert M'Kay purchased land and water power at what 
is now the village of Mumford, and had erected a saw mill there 
previous to 1808. In 1809, Thomas Mumford purchased the inter- 
est of Robert M'Kay. In 1817, Thomas Mumford and John M'Kay 
erected a large stone flouring mill having four run of stones. John 
W. Watkins opened the primitive tavern ; Philip Garbutt the first 
mercantile establishment. 

Donald M'Kenzie may be regarded as the earliest resident Pio- 
neer of the locality. In 1804, he came from his native place, In- 
verness, Scotland, remained in New York and Conned icut two 
years, and coming to the Genesee country in 1806, resided at 
Honeoye one year, after which, in 1807, he erected a log building 
upon the present site of Mumford, started the business of cloth 
dressing, becoming in that branch of business the Pioneer in all the 
Genesee country west of the river. His early customers were dis- 
tributed over a territory that now constitutes ten counties. The 
venerable Simon Pierson, of Le Roy, in some published reminis- 
cences, gives a graphic account of his first milling advent to Cale- 
donia. " I took my wheat on my horse," says the narrator, " rode 
down Allan's Creek 7 or 8 miles, when I came to a dark, dense 
forest of evergreens, which I took to be a cedar swamp on a hill. 
Near the centre of this swamp, as I took it to be, I found a small 
hut which I entered, for I was very cold, it being late in November. 
I found a good fire, and the workmen were at dinner. I found the 
owner liberal and intelligent. Pie told me his name was Donald 
M'Kenzie — that he was building a fulling mill, and making prepa- 
rations for wool-carding and cloth-dressing." 

In 1809, Mr. M'Kenzie added to his business, a carding machine, 
which was preceded in all the territory west of the river only by 
one erected by Wm. H. Bush, near Batavia. He still survives, af- 
ter a long, active, and useful life ; a good specimen of the energetic 
and persevering Pioneers. Few men are better versed in the his- 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAjM's PUECHASE. 501 

tory of early settlement in all this region, and the author is much 
indebted to him for written reminiscences, and the results of .his 
retentive memory. He is now 67 years of age. His surviving 
sons are :— William, in California; Daniel R., in Laporte, Indiana; 
John, Simon and Joseph, upon the homestead. Daughters became 
the wives of Daniel JNI'Naughton, of Wheatland, and Hector M'- 
Lean, of Rochester. 

O" For topography, &c., of Caledonia and Wheatland, see Ap- 
pendix to supplement, No. 1. 



RIGA. 



The settlement of "West Pulteney," now Riga, commenced 
under the auspices of Mr. Wadsworth, in 1805. The first ten set- 
tlers were :— Elihu Church, Samuel Shepherd, WiUiam Parker, 
Amasa Frost, Ezekiel Barnes, Nehemiah Frost, Samuel Church, 
Joseph Tucker, Enos Morse, and George Richmond. Elihu Church 
still survives, a resident upon the land upon which he settled in his 
early advent, and upon which the first tenement was erected, and 
the first improvement commenced, in Riga. He is in his 77th 
year. Dennis Church, late Supervisor of Riga, is his son ; daugh- 
ters became the wives of Erastus Sprague, of Lima, Dann Hawes, 
of Caryville, Genesee county, Oliver W. Warner, of Lake county, 
Ohio, Enoch Fitch, of Wilson, Niagara county, and an unmarried 
daughter resides at the homestead. His first wife died in. 1823; 
a present one was the widow of Matthew Fitch, one of the second 
class of early settlers in Riga. Mr. Church was for many years 
a Supervisor and Magistrate of Riga. 

Samuel Church, a brother of Elihu, was the founder of settle- 
ment at Churchville, where he built the first saw mill in town,ip 
1808, and a grist mill in 1811. He was a Captain of the first mili- 
tia company organized in Riga ; was upon the frontier in the war 
of 1812, and participated with his command in the sortie of Fort 
Erie. He died in 1850, in Chenango county, aged 82 years. His 
surviving sons are : — Rev. Samuel C. Church, of Medina, and Rev, 
Jared Church, of Tennessee; a daughter became the wife of the Rev. 
Charles Robinson, a missionary to Siam, who died on ship board on 
his return to this country in 1848. Mrs. Robinson who, with her 
three children, was returning with him, now resides in Medina; she 
was the first born in the town of Riga. Other daughters are, Mrs. 
Casey, of York, Mrs. Clark, of Byron, and the wife of the Rev. 
Titus Cohen, a missionary to the Sandwich Islands. 

Jesse Church, another brother, settled in Riga as early as 1807; 
was an early mechanic of Churchville ; also, the Captain of a com- 
pany in the war of 1812 ; was made a prisoner at Fort Erie, and 



502 PHELPS AND GORHA]\l's PUECHASE. 

earned to Halifax. He died in 1826 or '7. St9ddard Church, of 
Ogcleii, is his son ; other sons reside at the west. 

Samuel Shephard died but a few years since. Benjamin F. 
Shephard, of Riga, is his son ; his son Hiram, now deceased, was 
the first male child born in Riga. 

Amasa Frost died many years since ; Nelson A. Frost is his son; 
another son resides in INIichigan. Mrs. Jacob Albright, of Olcott, 
Niagara county, and the wife of Dr. Dibble, of Rochester, are his 
daughters. Nehemiah Frost died in 1850; Dr. Frost, of Medina, 
is his son. William Parker removed to Maple Ridge, Orleans coun- 
ty, and emigrated from there to the west. 

Those whose names follow, were all residents of Riga previous 
to 1810 — most of them settled there in 1808, '9 : — James Knowles, 
still survives ; Paul and William Knowles, of Riga, are his sons ; 
Mrs. Warner Brown and Mrs. Montross, of Riga, are his daugh- 
ters. Thomas Bingham still survives ; Joseph Bingham^ of Allega- 
ny, Justin Bingham, of Michigan, and William Bingham, of Riga, 
are his sons ; Mrs. Pratt, of Allegany, is his daughter. Clark Hall 
still survives, a resident of Wheatland, though his early location 
was in Riga. Hall's Corners, in Wheatland, took their name from 
him. Thomas Hill was the first Supervisor of Riga, still survies 
at the age of 89 years ; Rev. Robert Hill is his son ; another son, 
George Hill, resides in Wisconsin ; Mrs. Emerson, of Riga, is his 
daughter. Joseph Emerson still survives ; Erastus, Joseph, and 
George Emerson, of Riga, are his sons ; an only daughter became 
the wife of John Reed, of Sweden. Eber and Chester Orcutt ; 
Eber still survives. They were brothers ; the father, Moses Orcutt, 
was an earl}^ Pioneer in Pittstown. Benajah Holbrook, emigrated 
to Michigan ; IMrs. Frederick Davis, of Mount Morris, is iiis 
daughter. 

The rapidity of settlement warranted a mercantile establish- 
ment in Riga as early as 1808 ; that of Thompson & Tuttle ; the 
last named of the firm, was a non-resident, engaged at the time in 
running a big wagon upon the Albany and Buffalo road. Joseph 
Thompson, of the firm, was the Pioneer tavern keeper; a part ot 
the building now occupied by the Riga Academy, was erected by 
him for a tavern house. He died many years since. 

Dr. John Darling was the earhest physician in town ; he died in 
early years. He was succeeded by Dr. Richard Dibble. 

The first death in town was that of Richard Church, in 180'i', the 
father of the brothers who have been named. 



REMIKISCENCES OF ELIHU CHURCH. 



I emigrated from Berkshire to Phelps, Ontario county, in 1796, and 
purchased land upon Flint Creek, where I remained until 1805. In that 



PHELPS AND GOEHAJl's PURCHASE. 503 

year, Mr. Wadswortli's handbills had reached Berkshire, offering to ex- 
change wild lands for forms, and had induced by broll:ier Samuel to 
come and see the country. I accompanied him to what was then West 
Pulteney. We found it a densely and heavily timbered wilderness; the 
only occupants, other than wild beasts, John Smith and his surveying par- 
ty, their camp located on the stream near my present residence. We ex- 
plored the township, and were pleased with it. During the next winter, I 
selected for myself, my present location, and for my brother, the site of the 
present village of Churchville. In March, 1806, I removed my family 
from Phelps to my new location, expecting that I had a house ready for 
them, as I had contracted for the building of one ; but on arriving, we 
found ourselves houseless. WiUiam Parker, Samuel Shepherd and Amasa 
Frost, had preceded me a few days, with their families, and were occu- 
pants of the surveyors' camp, where myself and family were hospiiably ad- 
mitted as joint occupants; and a crowded household we had — 28 of us al- 
together — all in one small cabin. We called it the " Hotel," and that gave 
the name to the stream upon the banks of which it stood. Isaac, Elisha 
and David Farwell, then of "Springfield," now Wheatland, hearing that I 
was houseless, generously came and helped me erect one. We put up 
the body of it in one day ; had it ready to move into on the fourth day. 
The floor was of split basswood, the roof of cedar shingles; no boards 
were used in its construction ; I was farther indebted to Elisha Farwell for 
a few nails. I had now fairly commenced a pioneer life, a small specimen 
of which I had already witnessed, and been a part of, in Phelps. 

All of us who located in the spring of I BOG, raised small patches of 
summer crops. In the fall of that year. I had fifty acres cleared, which 
I sowed to wheat. I had got in debt in clearing land and in building, and 
though I had an excellent crop of wheat, it was difficult to pay debts with 
it; it would not command money. 1 exchanged some of it for labor, with 
new comers. In 1808, 1 took wheat to Canandaigua: there was no price 
and no sale for it there; no exchanging of it for store trade. I removed 
it to Geneva, at a cost of 124- cents per bushel, and paid a debt I owed 
there for a barrel of whiskey with it; the wheat finally netting me 12|- 
cents per bushel, or one gallon of whiskey for six bushels of wheat. We 
could get some store trade at Guernsey's store in Lima, in an early day, 
for wheat. The first cash market was at Charlotte; price, 31 cents per 
bushel. * In the cold season of 1816, when summer crops were general- 
ly destroyed throughout the country, there was an excellent wheat crop in 
Rio-a. In the fall, I sold my whole crop to Bond and Hatch, Rochester, 
for $2 per bushel; and after that, some of my neighbors sold their crops 
for 82 50 per bushel. 

In some of the earUest years, Mr. Wadsworth sent some pot-ash kettles 
into the township, and the manufacture of black salts and pot-ash was com- 
menced. It proved a great help to the new settlers; enabled them to pro- 
cure some of the common necessaries of life, when wheat would not. 

* Extract of a letter from Mr. "Wadsworth to Col. Troup, dated in 1808 : — " It is a 
fact tliat farmers have been compelled to sell tlieii- wheat, in some instances, for 18d. 
per bushel, to pay taxes !" 

Note. — The first four pot-ash kettles that Mr. Wadsworth procured in Albany, for 
the new settlements, cost $40 each ; transportation to the lauding place at Cayuga 



504 PHELPS AND GOEHAMS PURCHASE. 

The first town meeting we attended was in Ogden, at the house of Esq. 
Willey, in 1807. Then the town of Northampton embraced the northern 
towns of Monroe, west of the river ; or " settlements," and " districts," as 
they were then termed. We made choice of two Supervisors in succes- 
sion, but their election was a nullity, neither of them being freeholders; 
free-holders were scarce in that early day. We finally compromised the 
matter by appointing delegates from each settlement, to appoint town offi- 
cers. The proceeding was not exactly legal, but no objection being made, 
it all went off well enough. 

Our first religious meetings, previous to the organization of the Con- 
u-ren-ational church, were held in my barn, it being the first framed barn 
erected in town. I think Elder Keed, a Baptist missionary, was the first 
to visit our settlement. The Rev. Mr. Phelps and several Methodist cir- 
cuit preachers, visited us in early years. 



JudQ;e Henry Brewster, now a resident of Le Roy, at the ad- 
vanced age of 77 years, was one of the Pioneers of Riga. Though 
laboring under the physical infirmities incident to old age, his men- 
tal faculties are unimpaired ; as a well drawn up and intelligent 
account of his early advent, which he has furnished for this w^ork, 
attests. His surviving sons are : — Henry A. Brewster, Rochester, 
Edward Brewster, Buffalo, Albert Brewster, Le Roy, F. W. Brew- 
ster, Brockport ; a daughter is Mrs. Norris, of Stratford, Conn. 



REMI]!fISCEXCES OF HENRY BREWSTER. 



My father was a farmer in New London county, Connecticut, town of 
Prescott. As with most New England farmers, the Revolution, its per- 
sonal services and sacrifices, its incidental burdens, was the occasion of 
depression and embarrassment As soon as I was old enough to labor, 
ray services were required upon the farm, so unremittingly as even to de- 
prive me of the advantages of education, beyond what could be acquired 
before I was twelve years of age. I married at the age of twenty-three 
years, and unfortunately bought a farm and settled upon it, in one of the 
poorest mountain towns of the county of Berkshire. Unable to sell it, I 
was obliged to cultivate the ungenial soil of the Berkshire mountains for 
ten of the best years of my life. 

The day of deliverance came, however: — In 1805, I met with a large 
handbill sent out by James Wadsworth, Esq., of " Big Tree," proposing 
to exchange each alternate range of lots of land in " West Pulteney town- 
ship," for improved farms in the county of Berkshire. Daniel Dewey, 

Esq., of Williamstown, and Hopkins, Esq., of Great Barrington, were 

named as the agents in Berkshire, who would give applicants all needed 

Bridge, for the four, $156 25. This was in 1807. In 1808, he bought 24 kettles in 
Albany,at $35 each ; cost of ti'ansportation but little less than in the preceding year . 



PHELPS AND GOP.HAm's PURCHASE. 505 

information. The farms were to be taken at appraised vatue, and the wild 
land given in exchange, at $4 per acre. 

In October, 1805, Mr. Samuel Baldwin, a neighbor of mine, and myself, 
mounted our horses and came to see the Genesee countr}', and especially 
West Pulteney. Arriving at Avon, a guide had been provided by Mr. 
Wadsworth to conduct us to our destination. Reaching the "Hanover 
settlement," in East Pulteney, we went through the woods to the survey- 
ors' cabin in West Pulteney, where we were lodged, fed, and provided with 
maps and a guide, while we made a pretty thorough exploration of the 
township. We found that sevei-al of our neighbors from Berkshire had 
been in, [those named by Mr. Church,] had visited the township, pur- 
chased and exchanged lands; but all that was doing to prepare for settle- 
ment, was a chopping that was making by Mr. Elihu Church and his hired 
man. Liking the country, and especially the land we were viewing, Mr- 
Baldwin and myself selected 850 acres each, the quantity which the ap- 
praised value of our farms in Berkshire entitled us to. After this, we visit- 
ed the mouth of the river, and ascending it, viewed the Falls, the Rapids* 
and the present site of Rochester. All was a dreary wilderness, in which 
there was no opening, save that made by the river, and a small one imme- 
diately about the old Allan mill. There was a narrow and crooked wagon 
path on the east side of the river, and such it remained for several years 
after, during which I wagoned many loads of pot-ash over it to the mouth 
of the river, made from the timber of my lands in West Pulteney. 

We then visited "Big Tree," where we were hospitably entertained by 
Mr. Wadsworth, our land exchanges arranged, and the deeds prepared, 
which we took with us to Albany to be signed by Col. Troup. We also, 
each of us, purchased several lots upon credit. 

In the fall of 1806, I re- visited the country to make preparations for the 
removal of my family. At the hotel in Canandaigua, where I was reraain- 
ino- over the Sabbath, I met with Col. Troup. There being no public 
worship in the village, we spent the day in company. Observing that he 
took a lively intei est in all that related to the settlement of the country, 
and especially in all that related to public worship, and a strict regard to 
the observance of the Sabbath, I ventured to suggest to him the happy in- 
fluence it would have upon our new settlement in West Pulteney, if he 
would set apart or donate lands for religious and educational purposes; 
while at the same time, it would promote the sale and settlement of the 
township. He fell in with my views, saying to me : — " Go on and organize 
a religious society, elect trustees, and select two one hundred acre lots — 
one for the support of the Gospel, and another for the support of schools — 
call on me at Albany on your return, and I will deliver you the title deeds." 
Durino- my stay in the settlement, a meeting of the Pioneers took place, 
few in number, and measures were adopted to avail ourselves of thedonation. 
There were then five families in West Pulteney, and about fifteen heads 
of families were making arrangements to settle there. At the meeting, it 
was ao-reed to take all the necessary legal steps in the formation of a reli- 
gious society : one of which was the requirement, that notice of intention 

Note. — la a letter from Mr. Wadsworthi to Col. Ti'oiip, in 1805, in speaking of the 
fine prospects lie had of settling "West Pulteney, he mentions Messrs. Baldwin and 
Brewster as likely to prove a valuable acquisition to the new settlement. 
32 



506 PHELPS AND GOEHAM S PTJECHASE. 

sLould be read at the " close of public worship, three Sabbaths in succes- 
sion," of the time and place to moot to orgaaize suCh society-. We ap- 
pointed a meeting thr e Sabbaths in succession, at the log-house of Amasa 
Frost. J)eaco;i JS'i'hemiah Frosi and myself jsvere the only professors of 
religion in the setilo uont; we conducted the readhig and prayer meetings. 
Every person, young and old, attended the meetings. On die day appoint- 
ed for the organization of the society, Neheraiah Frost vas chosen modera- 
tor, and myself secretary. Nehemiah Frost, Samuel Church, Amasa 
Frost, Samuel Baldwin, EHhu Church and myself, v/ere chosen trustees. 
The society was called the " First Congregational Society of West Pulte- 
ney, in tht; county of Genesee." The lands were secured, and devoted to 
the objects designed by the donor, or donors, as Coi. Troup acted, of 
course, for l.is principals. 

In less tlian three years after the organization of the society, a church 
was formed, and the llcv. Allen Hollister, from the county of Dutchess, 
was settled as its pastor. The chui'ch and society, thus early organized, 
have uniformly supported a pastor, up to the present time, without any 
missionary aid. I am the only one living of the original members of that 
church, and I do not know of any of the original members of the society 
living, except Elihu Church, Esq., and myself 

I moved my family from Berkshire to the then new region of the Genesee 
country, in May, 1807. The town of Riga had a rapid and permanent 
settlement, the population being, with few exceptions, from New England, 
We saw, perhaps, less of the harsher features of pioneer life, than most of 
new settlers. We were tolerably well accomodated with a grist and saw 
mill; the substantial necessaries of life were obtained at a convenient dis- 
tances, and at fair prices; the lack of a market was a serious drawback. 
Before the completion of the Erie Canal, in one year, I raised three 
thousand bushels of wheat. After harvest, the nominal price was from 31 
to 37-^ cents per bushel. I tried the experiment of transporting flour to 
Northampton, Conn., by sledding. For this purpose, I had seventy bar- 
rels manufactured from the best quality of wheat. Purchasing six yoke 
of oxen, I put them upon two sleds, and two spans of horses, each upon a 
sleifdi. With the four teams, I transported my 70 barrels of flour; Avas 
on the road tv eaty days; sold my flour at IG per barrel, and rny oxen at 
a profit; ail for cash in hand. My teamsters cost me nothing but their 
board going and coming, as they wished to visit New England; and that 
was a part of my own otjject; — upon the whole, the experiment succeeded 
pretty well. We were about twenty days on the road, going down. 1 sold 
the balance of my crop of wheat the next June, for 56 cents per bushel. 
It went to the Canada market. 



If OTE. — In a letter to Mr. Tronp, dated January. 1807, Mr. Wads-n-orth says : — 
"When I commenced inviting settlement to West Pulteuey, it was literally a wilder- 
ness, ■witiioiit a road passim^ through it. It had been for sale ten years, antl not a set- 
tler had gone imon the trae!. Sales had been emban'assed by the cheap lands of the 
Holland Company ; and yet, notwithstanding these obstacles, it has become the most 
respectable settlement west of the Genesee river." In a letter from same, to sa^me, in 
May i\>llowing, it is remaiked : — " Mr. Mjad has erected a saw-mill on Black Creek ; 
nine new barns have been erected in West Pulteuey. There is not three frame barns 
in Caledonia. 



PHELPS AM) GOEHMl's PUECHASE. 507 

Less t[ian a century has produced such a change in the aspect and con- 
dition of all this region, as is hardly to be credited by those who have not 
resided in it; and hardly to be realized by those who have. Even those 
who are wont to " take careful note of time," have been unable to keep up 
with progress and improvement. Forty years have changed Rochester 
from a wUderness to what it now is; and Riga shows what has been done 
in a little more than forty years by the hardy enterprise of New England 
yeomanry; about half of the time destitute of the advantages of a mar- 
ket. A heavy timbered wilderness has been converted into a well cultiva- 
ted, well fenced, wealthv farming town; unsurpassed by any town, in any 
region of country, in the way of neat and convenient farm houses and 
barns, and in the general appearance of rural happiness and independence. 

After observations made in travelling more or less in twenty States of 
the Union, I regard the greater portion of western New York, in point of 
soil, climate, and in all things which go to make up the character of a 
countrv, as the most desirable spot of earth, in which I could reside as a 
farmer. 



An excellent example was set by the venerable Pioneer, Elihu 
Church. Esq., in the spring of 1850. He invited to his ample and 
hospitable dwelling, all the Pioneers of Riga, and they had a plea- 
sant, social time of it. Old times were reviewed, anecdotes and re- 
miniscences related ; the memories of their departed friends and 
neighbors passed in review; old acquaintances revived and friend- 
ships renewed ; toasts and sentiments offered ; — in all things, it was 
an agreeable and happy meeting. Present, as "in every good 
work," having reference to pioneer times, was the enthusiastic, kind 
hearted Scotchman, Donald M'Kenzie. It is to be hoped that such 
social parlies v.'ill be multiplied. 

Among the reminiscences related, was that of Mrs. Emerson, 
who said that on one occasion, when their wheat was ripe, her hus- 
band " cut it with a sickle, drew it out of the field upon an ox sled, 
threshed it with a flail, cleaned it with a hand fan, drew it to Ro- 
chester and sold it for 31 cents per bushel." Elihu Church, Esq.. 
related the affair of the cold bath in Black Creek, in the winter of 
1807. Himself and brother Samuel, Amasa Frost, Samuel Shep- 
herd, and their wives, were on their way to visit their neighbor, 
Jehiel Barnes. Crossing the stream on their ox sled, the hind board 
come out as they were raising the steep bank, and the whole party 
were drenched with water, in a cold night, two miles from the near- 
est house. 

A resolution was passed, worthy of especial note : — It was in 
substance, that the male Pioneers present, attributed, under Provi- 
dence, a large share of the success that had crowned their efforts, 
to the heroic fortitude, self-denial, fidelity and energy, of their " ex- 
cellent Pioneer wives." 

The Pioneers present, all entered their names, ages, and the 



508 

periods of their advents. A review of the list, and a reference to 
other means of observation, induces the conclusion, that there is no 
town in the Genesee country, where there is so large a proportion 
of the Pioneer settlers surviving. 

The first town meeting was held at the house of Henry 
Waidener, in J 809. Thomas Hill was chosen Supervisor, and 
Joshua Howell, town clerk. The other town officers were : — 
Eleazer T. Slater, Jesse Church, Israel Douglass, Thomas Bing- 
ham, Jacob Cole, Isaac C. Griswold, Amasa Frost, Henry Waiden- 
er, Thomas Gay, Warner Douglass, Daniel Dinsmore, George Rich- 
mond, Solomon Blood. Elihu Church was Supervisor in 1811, 
'12, '13; and Horatio Orton, town clerk in those years. 



OGDEN. 



John Murray, a merchant in New York, was an early proprietor 
of T. 3, west of Genesee river, formerly Fairfield, now Ogden. 
William Ogden, of New York, was his son-in-law; consequently, 
one of the heirs of the estate ; and thence the name the town bears. 
The sale and settlement of the township was embraced in the nu- 
merous agencies of James Wadsworth. Soon after 1800, he made 
himself acquainted with the valuable tract, and took preliminary 
steps to bring it into market. Fixing the price at $2 per acre, in 
1802, he sold farm lots, in the township, to Benajah Willey, Abra- 
ham Colby, John Gould, John Webster, Sally Worthington, Benj. 
Freeman, Snow, Daniel Spencer. 

The Pioneer of the township was George W. Willey, who still 
survives at the age of 83 years. He is living with his third wife, 
and of nine children, but three survive : — George Willey, of Michi- 
gan, ]Mrs. Elisha P. Davis, of Churchville, and Mrs. Jehiel Castle, 
of Parma. Mr. Willey moved in his family from East Haddam, 
Conn., in 1804. His route from Avon was via Scottsville and the 
Hanover settlement, where Joseph Carey, Samuel Scott, and John 
Kimball, had located, and to which point they had opened a road. 
Beyond that, Mr. Wadsworth was opening a road to " Fairfield," 
but had it but partly completed. Mr. Willey had been in the year 
before, and built a log house, and made a small opening, accom- 
panied by Dillingham, whom he had found settled on Black 

Creek, and persuaded to change his location. Each erected log 
houses, the first tenements in the township ; living in a rude canjp, 
and procuring their provisions of the new settlers south of them. 
When they had the logs ready for their houses, they went in differ- 
ent directions, to Braddock's Bay, the Landing, Scottsville, and the 
Hanover settlement, for help to raise ; procured in all about twenty 
men. Mr. Willey remembers that he came very near not being 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 509 

present at the raising of iiis own iiouse ; for in his tour, inviting the 
raisers, he got lost, remained in the woods all night, and his return 
was thus delayed until after the raising had commenced. Mr. 
Wadsworth had offered a premium of six bushels of wheat, a barrel 
of whiskey, and a barrel of pork, for the first dwelling raised in the 
township ; and was himself present at the raising ; sharing the 
camp of Messrs. Willey and Dillingham over night, but getting lit- 
tle sleep ; for the backwoodsmen, intent upon a frolic, used up the 
whole night for that purpose, insisting occasionally that he should 
participate in their rude sports, which he knew well how to do 
when occasion required; and a log house raising, away off in the 
wilderness, was no place to be a non-participant in whatever was 
proposed. Dillingham moved his family in soon after, but getting 
lonesome, moved back to Black Creek. After the raising, Mr. Wil- 
ley was taken sick, was removed to Geneseo, and recovering, re- 
turned to Connecticut late in the fall, coming out with his family 
the next season, as has been mentioned. Before his arrival with his 
family, Ephraim, Abraham, Timothy, and Isaac Colby, two of them 
with families, had built a log house and moved in. In the same 
year, Josiah Mather, Jonathan Brown, Henry Hahn,,and William 
H. Spencer, settled in the town. 

At the Pioneer Festival in Rochester, in 1849, the medal pro- 
cured for that purpose, was awarded to Mr. Willey, as the oldest 
resident Pioneer in attendance. 

William B. Brown settled in Ogden in 1806 or '7 ; was from 
Lynn, Conn. ; located near the present village of Spencerport ; 
married in early years the sister of Mr. Willey ; still survives at 
the age of 66. He has been one of the Judges of Monroe county ; 
a Colonel of militia ; was upon the frontier in the war of 1812, in 
Colonel Atchinson's regiment. Rev. Daniel Brown, the father of 
Judge Brown, settled in Ogden as early as 1807 or '8. He preach- 
ed the first sermon in the village (now city) of Rochester ; died in 
Pittsford, in 1845, aged 84 years. William Brown, of Ogden, is a 
son of his ; a daughter became the wife of the Rev. Lemuel Brooks, 
of Churchville. Daniel Arnold in 1805 ; died in early years ; 
Daniel, Aaron and Enoch Arnold, of Ogden, and Ebenezer Ar- 
nold, of Bergen, are his sons ; a daughter of his became the wife 
of Samuel Latta, of Greece. David Wandle was one of the ear- 
liest ; died some 25 years since ; no descendants residii^ in town. 
James Baldwin was a settler in early years; removed to Royalton, 
Niagara county, where he died a few years since, and where many 
of his family now reside. James Pattingill, Jarvis Ring, Stephen 
Gridley, Oliver Gates, were other early settlers : — Mr. Pattingill 
died about ten years since ; Benjamin, Reuben, Osgood, and Moses 
Patiingill, of Ogden, are his sons ; a daughter is the wife of Nathaniel 
Rollin, of Ogden. Mr. Gridley is still living. Mr. Gates died 15 
or 16 years since ; Stephen and Henry Gates, of Ogden, are his sons. 



510 

Daniel Spencer from East Haddam, Conn., settled in Ogden in 
1804. His farm embraced the present village of Spencerport. He 
died in 1835, aged 54 years ; his first wife was a sister of Mr. Wil- 
ley ; Joseph A. and Libbeus Spencer are his sons. He was Col- 
lector of the old town of Northampton. Austin Spencer, his brother, 
settled in the town in 1808, locating near his brother. He still 
survives at the age of 67 years. He was the Supervisor of the 
town, before and after the organization of Monroe county ; and for 
twenty years a Justice of the Peace. 

John P. Patterson settled in Ogden in 1810. He was the first 
Supervisor of the town, and afterwards the Sheriff of Monroe. 
He emigrated to Illinois, where he died a few years since. Samuel 
Kilbourn, now of Brockport, was a brother-in-law of Sheriff Pat- 
terson, and settled in Ogden about the same period ; was an early 
Supervisor of the town, and a Justice of the Peace. 

The first religious meeting in the town, was held at the house of 
Esq. Willey, in 1805; Revs. Mr. Mitchell, Jenks, Van Epps, 
Gatchell, Lane, were early Methodist circuit preachers, who visited 
the settlement. The first settled minister was the Rev. Ebenezer 
Everett. Dr. Gibbon Jewett was the first physician, and practiced 
for many years. He died at Parma Corners about 15 years since. 
The first school was kept by a sister of Esq. Willey, who became 
the wife of Judge Brown. Benajah Willey built the first framed 
house and barn ; pretty much all the settlers who came in in 1804, 
raised a few crops in 1805. The first born in town, was John 
Colby, a son of Abraham Colby. 

The settlement of the town w^as pretty much arrested during the 
war of 1812 ; but after the war, was rapid, until the whole was set- 
tled. Mr. Wadsworth recommended the township to his New 
England friends, as one of the best in the Genesee country ; and 
well he might. The soil is uniformly of the best quality ; and what 
is a little remarkable, there is perhaps, not 50 acres of waste land 
in the township. 

Charles Church was the first and the principal merchant in Og- 
den for over thirty years. He died in Rochester, in 1850, where 
his widow (who is a descendant of the Pioneer of Bloomfield, Dea- 
con John Adams.) now resides. He left but one son, a minor ; a 
daughter is the wife of F. T. Adams, of Rochester. Fairchilds and 
Richards were also early merchants in Ogden. 

Many of the early settlers of Ogden were from Haddam, Conn. 
When Mr. Wadsworth had resolved upon commencing the settle- 
ment, he visited that part of New England, and in Haddam a pub- 
lic meeting was called to hear his description of the new town of 
'■Fairfield." It was called the "Genesee meeting." Following 
this, Daniel Arnold came out, saw the township, and reported favor- 
ably. Emigration soon commenced. 

The settlem.ent of the town was carried on under the auspices of 



PHELPS AWD GOKHAM's PtJECHASE. 511 

Mr. Wadsworth, until 1823, when Messrs. JMurray and Ogden ap- 
pointed Mr. Willey their local agent, and he continued to act as 
their agent until the township was all sold and paid for. The father 
of Mr. Willey, (Benajah Willey) who it will be observed was the 
first purchaser in the township, settled in it in 1806. He died in 
early years. 

The late Wm. H. Spencer, as will have been observed, located 
first in Ogden. He built a saw mill in 1805, which furnished the 
first boards used in that resfion. 



PARMA. 



Gore in Parma, north of Fairfield." — This was the desJQ-nation 



t-i 



given by Mr. Wadsworth, under whose agency it was sold and 
settled, to all the south part of the town of Farm a, on either side of 
the Ridge Road. Those who first purchased, or took contracts for 
land, upon this tract,commencing in 1805, and in the order named, 
were: — Abner Brockway Jr., James Egbert, Jonathan Ogden, 
Hope Davis, Lazarus Church, Samuel M. Moran, Daniel Brown, 
Bezaliel Atchinson, Jarvis Ring, Tillotson Ewer. It is not to be 
presumed that all these became settlers. The reminiscences of 
two Pioneers, as given to the author, will embrace the names of most 
of the settlers, and most of the early events : — 



REMINISCENCES OF LEVI TALMADGE. 



I was a resident of Wolcott, N. H. In 1803, James Wadsworth visited 
that town, called a public meeting, gave us a description of the Cjenesee 

country, and urged us to emigrate. Thomas Wiard, Beniii Bishop, 

Stebbins, Seymour Welton cind Abel Curtis, with their families, and Ash- 
bel Atkins, John Curtiss, and myself, unmarried men, formed an eraigant 
party. There was 38 persons in all. We came with seven wagons, form- 
ing a considerable cavalcade ; were 21 days on the road. Geneseo was 
our destination ; when we arrived there we were all quartered in some log 
houses that belonged to Mr. Wadsworth ; were joyfully received by the 
settlers ; we liked the country ; and all were cheerful and happy. 

I worked out by the month for a year or two ; was engaged for some 
time in a trading- excursion with James Rodgers who had settled in Canan- 
daigua in an early day ; we traded with the Indians in Allegany and 
Cattaraugu.^. I resided in Bergen from 1809 until 1811, ia which last 
year, I came to Parma, and purchased the tavern stand and the small im- 
provement of Hope and Eiisha Davis. They had been Pioneers at Parma 
Corners ; had built a comfortable block house. Hope died in 184t) ; his 
widow still survives ; Eiisha Dcwis removed to Eio-a. 



512 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

There was settled at Parma Corners before the close of 1811, beside 
the Davisosand myself: — Augustus Mather; he died four years since; his 
widow still survives ; Mrs. Amos Webster of Parma is his daughter. Lendell 
Curtiss; emigrated to Michigan, some years since; Kinnicone Roberts died 
in early years; his vridow is Mrs. Brewer of Ogden. Joshua Whitney, 
who in 1811 and '12, built a grist and saw mill on Salmon creek; he emi- 
grated to Michigan, where he now resides. These were all at the corners and 
west of them, on the Ridge. Josiah Fish had removed from the Allan 
mills at Rochester, and resided on the Ridge east of the villige. 

Our first merchants at Parma corners, were Joseph Thompson and David 
Tuttle; their successors were, John Rochester and Harvey Montgomery; 
their succe!^sor was ^Yilliam M'Knight, now of Rochester. Dr. Gibbons 
Jewett, was our first physician ;. Gibbon U. Jewett, of Parma, is his son; 
he was an early supervisor and magistrate. John D. Higgins was the first 
settled physician in Parma; remained but two or three years and removed 
to Bath. Dr. John Scott practiced here in several early years. 

Zolved Stevens settled in Parma in 1813 or '14; was a merchant and 
distiller; a supervisor and magistrate; died 12 or 14 years since. 

Settlement was entirely suspended during the war of 1812; some left, but 
none came ; and yet the beating up of recruits, the marching of soldiers, the 
transportation of supplies for the army,made brisk times upon the Ridge Road. 
It was a constant state ■ f excitement and alarm, and little was done in the 
way of improvements by those who remained in the country. Hope Da- 
vis, the early Pioneer I have named, raised a volunteer company, and went 
to the Frontier; was at the battle of Lundy's Lane, and in several other 
en'->agements. I have a cannon ball t at weighs si.\ty-eight pounds, that 
was tired from the British fleet, off the mouth of Genesee River. I saw 
where it struck, and went and picked it up. 



The earl}^ tavern keeper, Mr. Talmadge, resides upon a fine 
farm a mile west of Parma Corners ; is childless ; his wife, who 
was the widow of David Franklin, whose sudden death is noticed 
by Mr. Pierson, died in 1842. 

' Samuel Castle settled in Parma, north of Ridge, in 1810, and was 
joined next year by his father, Abraham Castle. The old gentle- 
man died in 1812. His surviving sons, other than the one named, 
ave : — Jehiel Castle, of Parma ; Isaac Castle, of Greece. A daugh- 
ter of his became the wife of Arnold Markham, a brother of the 
early Pioneers in Avon and Kush. Samuel Castle has been one of 
the Judges of Monroe countv. 



REMIXISCENCES OF SAMUEL CASTLE. 



Our purchase of land when we came in, was of Birdseye & Norton ; 
the location had upon it a small improvement that had been made by 
Michael Beach, a previous occupant. He had been a salt boiler; had sev- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 513 

eral kettles set; ruined his salt spring by endeavoring to get stronger 
water. Beach removed to Pittsford, died several years since in Clarendon. 
When our family came in, there was but one road leading from the Ridge 
Road to the Lake ; it was called- the " Canawaugus Road ;" anotlier road 
led from Braddock's Bay to "Deep Hollow Bridge." What was called 
the Canawaugus road is now the main road from Parma Corners to Parma 
Centre and Unionville. The inhabitants at that period north of Ridge, in 
Parma, other than those in the immediate Braddock's Bay settlement, 
were: — Alpheus Madden, near Parma Centre; died here, his family re- 
moved; Timothy Madden, a little west of Castle's Corners; died 15 or 20 
years since; Silas Madden, of Parma, is his son; Mrs. Joseph Randall, of 

Parma, is his daughter. Hicks; died in early years; Van Rensse- 

lear and Benjamin Hicks, of Parma, are his sons. Joshua Hickson, 
Jeremiah Perry ; died here. Nehemiah Weston. 

In 1810, there was no framed house or barn in Parma, north of Ridge, 
except in the Braddock's Bay settlement; there was but one house at Par- 
ma Corners. It was very sickly north of Ridge, in all the early years; 
in some localities, in the sickly seasons, there would not be well ones 
enough to take care of the sick; deaths sometimes occurred for the want 
of the ordinary nursing of the sick. I have often, when afflicted with the 
ague, promised I would leave the country when I got well enough; many 
did leave. The sickness used to prevail most at Braddock's Bay, and about 
the Ponds. A spirit of kindness prevailed among the new settlers, a sym- 
pathy for each others misfortunes; those who 'lived in settlements a little 
more favored, would go where sickness prevailed most, in whole households, 
and take care of the invalids day and night. The land north of Ridge, 
was heavily timbered, wet. It was so hard beginning, that men who had 
no means, could not take up land and pay for it; most that attempted to 
do so, failed ; were obliged to sell their improvements for what they could 
get. I knew of one man, however, who persevered in this way, taking up 
land, making small improvemen's, and selling out, until he became the 
owner of a good farm. The proprietors of the land were very indulgent; 
had it been otherwise, but few of the early settlers could ever become free- 
holders. There was, in the earliest years of settlement, no market when 
the settlers had any thing to sell; in 1810, they had began to better their 
condition by the manufacture of pot-ash and black salts. 

During the war, settlement was mostly suspended; some left who did 
not return ; others would move off at periods of e.vcitement and alarm, and 
return ao-ain. A singular circumstance occurred with one of our neigh- 
bors at the battle of Queenston: — Joseph Stoddard was shot in the fore- 
head; the army surgeons extracted a ball; he came home, and another was 
extracted; the two balls having made but one perforation of the skull. 



Parma Centre is three miles north of Parma Corners ; there is a 
post-office, two meeting houses, two stores, several machine shops, 
and a tavern house and dwellincrs. Unionville is two miles north 
of Parma Corners ; there at that point, two meeting houses, a store, 
several machine shops and dwellings. The village has started on 



514 PHELPS Am) G0EHA3l's PUECHASE. 

the farms of Jason Tyler, and Jonathan Underwood. The last of 
■whom, is especially remembered by many early Pioneers. He is a 
bachelor, nearly 70 years of age. He had a large improved farm, 
and in an ear'y day raised large crops of grain. In seasons of 
scarcity he would withhold from those who had money to purchase, 
and trust it out to his neighbors who stood in need of it. Let those 
old neighbors, or their descendants, see that marble, as well as 
history records this fact. 

The town of Parma was erected in 1808. At the first town 
meeting in 1809, Gibbons Jewett was elected Supervisor, Justin 
Worthington, town Clerk ; other town officers : — Jarvis Ring, 
Jonathan Underwood, Abraham Colby. Daniel C. Arnold, Joshua 
Wickson, Elisha U. Brown, Josiah Mather, Benjamin Freeman, 
Ephraim Colby, Hope Davis, Stephen Atchinson. 

The north part of Parma was called by Mr. Wadsworth, "Brad- 
dock's Bay Township." It was surveyed in 1790, by Joseph Colt. 
Upon the original surveyor's map, many lots are marked as sold to 
" Thaver," and afterwards it is noted that they are "released by 
Thayer to Lady Bath." It would seem that Mr, Wadsvvorth's 
agency, in the township commenced in 180G, or rather that he first 
turned his attention to the sale and settlement of it in that year. — 
In September, of that year, he wrote to Mr. Troup : — "I have 
just been down to Braddock's Bay Township. Almost every man, 
woman and child was sick with the fever ; some of them were 
actually suffering. I supplied them with some articles of necessity. 
I am afraid the settlement will be abandoned." How changed ! The 
region which the enterprising patroon of new settlements then 
spoke of with so much despondency — where men, worn down by 
disease and all the trials incident to back- wood's life ; is now one of 
health and prosperity. It would take from 840 to $60 per acre, to 
induce its owners to " abandon" it now ; and most of them are 
under no necessity of quitting it even at that rate. 



GREECE. 



In a preceding portion of the work, the early advent of William 
Hencher, the proprietors of the " 20,000 acre tract," and a few oth- 
ers, in what is now Greece, has been noticed. It remains in this 
connection to speak of pioneer events there at a later period. 

Messrs. Troup and Wadsworth would seem to have contem- 
plated the making of the mouth of the river a commercial point, 
soon after Col. Troup succeeded to the agency of the Pulteney 
estate ; it is often a subject of discussion in their correspondence ; 
but it was not until a few years before the war of 1812, that any 
movements were made to that end. Samuel Latta was the first 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAM's PUECnASE. 515 

permanent settler there, as a local agent for the Pulteney estate, 
and the locality having been made a port of entry, he was appoin- 
ted a collector of customs, and had also a small mercantile establish- 
ment. The Latta family were early settlers at Geneva ; Mrs. 
Benjamin Bai'ton of Lewiston, was a member of it. Samuel Lat- 
ta died in Greece ; his widow is now Mrs. Beal, of that town ; John 
Latta of Brockport, is his s^on. George Latta, now the owner and 
occupant of the fine farm on the lake shore, near Charlotte, was a 
younger brother of Samuel ; became a resident at Charlotte, in 181L 
Erastus Spalding, who had resided at or near Geneva, settled at 
the mouth of the river, under the auspices of Col. Troup, some 
time before the war of 1812. He built and opened the first hotel; 
a building now standing on the bluff', a little up the river from the 
present steam boat landing ; had a small trading establishment ; 
built the first vessel at the point — the schooner Isabel, which was 
captured by the Bnitish, in the war of 1812 — and was the first to 
commence the purchase of butt staves, a business that became one 
of considerable magnitude at that point. JMr. Spalding afterwards 
became the owner and occupant of the farm on the river, which 
embraced the eligible plat of ground now called Lake View, near 
the city of Rochester. His son, Lyman A. Spalding, was one of 
the earliest merchants of Lockport'and has been for many years 
one of the most enterprizing business men of W. N. York ; other 
surviving sons are, Holmes Spalding of Michigan ; Mark Spalding 
of Lockport, and Frederick Spalding of Rochester. 

Frederick Bushnell, was established as a merchant at Charlotte, 
previous to, and during the w^ar of 1812. Samuel Currier was an 
early tavern keeper at Charlotte, and had some connection with the 
lake commerce. It is mentioned as an extraordinary fact, that he 
was the husband of seven wives, five of whom are buried- at Char- 
lotte. He was drowned in the Genesee River, below the Falls. 

The first steam boat that entered the mouth of the Genesee Riv- 
er, was the Ontario, in 1816 — Capt. Eli Lusher was commander. 

John Mastick, who afterwards settled at Rochester, was first 
located at Charlotte, previous to the war ; was the Pioneer lawyer 
of all this local region. Giles H. Holden, Esq., now a resident at 
Charlotte, settled there at the close of the war. He remarks : — 
"As late as 1815, there were but few settlers at Charlotte. Sick- 
ness and the war had been the principal hindrances. When I came 
there were many deserted tenements in Greece, where the Pioneers 
had either died, or had left the country on account of sickness, or 
in fear of British invasion. For many years after, the ague and 
fever, and the billioiis fever were very general in July and Au- 
gust. In 1819, diseases were most fatal — many died — there 
were instances of three and four deaths in the same family. The 
prevalence of disease w-as attributed to the low grounds on the riv- 
er and lake ; to the ponds and marshes, of which there are over 



516 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 

4000 acres in the town of Greece. I attribute it rather to the 
clearing up of land, the letting in of the sun upon wet lands, the 
consequent decomposition of vegetable matter ; for now that lands 
are cleared and dry, we have little of disease, and yet the ponds and 
marshes mostly remain as they were in the early settlement of the 
country." 

Immediately after the war there was a considerable accession of 
inhabitants at Charlotte ; the purchase and shipping of lumber and 
pot ash, and a small business in the way of shipping flour and grain, 
made it a pretty busy place ;. but as Rochester gradually sprung up, 
business declined there. 

The mouth of the river was an exposed point during all of the 
war of 1812 ; in the fore fact of the war, the enemy had vastly the 
superiority in naval force upon the lake : and in fact, during the 
entire war, there was too little to prevent their landing where they 
chose, between Oswego and Niagara ; a fact however, that they 
were not at all times aware of. At the mouth of the river there was 
but little to attract them, and Rochester, as will be inferred, was of 
no magnitude that would have made its capture either glorious, or 
profitable. Although there were several instances of disembarking 
and embarking of American armies at Charlotte, and of temporary 
encampments, there was no regular force established there during 
the war. The defence of the position mainly devolving upon the 
local militia, and volunteer companies, who at some periods were 
exempt from going upon the Niagara Frontier in consequence of 
anticipated exigencies nearer home. 

Sir James Yeo, the British commander, made his first appearance 
ofi^ the mouth of the river, in June, 1813. He had contemplated 
an attack upon Oswego, but the weather proving unfavorable, he 
cruis d up the lake, anchored off the mouth of Genesee River, and 
sent a party on shore. Their entire errand was plunder; no resis- 
tance was offered, for there was no military organization to offer it. 
The only restraint that was put upon a few captured citizens, was the 
preventing their going out to warn the inhabitants of the neighbor- 
hood of their presence. 

In the store-house of Frederick Bushnell there w^as a quantity of 
salt, whiskey, and provisions, which they took oft^ in a business 
way, however, for they gave to the clerk, George Latta, a receipt 
for the property. The landing was made in an afternoon ; they 
remained over night, keeping out sentinels^ and quietly retired early 
in the morning ; probably getting an intimation that an armed force 
was collecting at Handford's Landing. A body of armed men 
that had collected there marched down, arriving at the Charlotte 
landing just as the invaders were embarking on board their boats. — 
Some shots were fired upon them, but from too great a distance to 
be effective. 

Toward the last of September, of the same year, both the British 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHAIm's PURCHASE. 51 Y 

and Amertcan fleets were at the upper end of the lake, Commo- 
dore Chauncey making frequent demonstrations to Sir James Yeo, 
of his readiness to contend for tiie supremacy of the lake, but the 
latter declining, and gradually making his way down the lake. — • 
Arriving off the mouth of the Genesee River the fleet was becalm- 
ed and lay almost motionless upon the water. The inhabitants at 
Charlotte supposed the fleet had anchored preparatory to another 
landing, expresses were sent into the country ; men armed and 
unarmed flocked from the back-wood's settlements, and in a few 
hours a considerable number of men collected ready to fight or to run, 
as chances of invasion should make it expedient. While anxiously 
watching the Br'.tish fleet, expecting every moment to see their boats 
coming toward the shore, a light breeze sprung up, and soon after, 
the fleet of Commodore Chauncey was seen rounding Bluff Point. 
It was a welcome advent, was hailed with joyous shouts from the 
shore ; at a moment when a weak force had supposed themselves 
about to engage with a vastly superior one, succor had come — a 
champion had stepped, or rather sailed in, quite equal to the task of 
defence, in fact seeking the opportunity that seemed to have occur- 
red. Commodore Chauncey brought his fleet within a mile from 
the shore, and when it was directly opposite the becalmed fleet of 
the enemy, he opened a tremendous fire upon it. At first a sheet of 
flame arose from the American fleet, and then a dense cloud of 
smoke, that rolling off before a light breeze, blowing off shore, as 
completely shut out the British fleet from view, as if the curtains 
of night had been suddenly drawn; while the American fleet 
remained in full view. The fire was returned, but as the breeze 
increased both moved down the lake, continuing to exchange shots 
until after dark. The fire upon the British fleet was pretty effect- 
ive, until by its superior sailing abilities it had got out of the reach of 
Commodore Chauncey 's guns. The British fleet was a good deal 
disabled ; and an officer and ten men were either killed or woun- 
ded. A vessel of the American fleet got a few shots through its 
hull, but no one was either killed or wounded on board of it. '• Sir 
James Yeo, ran into Amherst Bay where the American fleet was 
unable to follow him on account of the shoals."* 

The next visit of Sir James Yeo, with his fleet, to the mouth of 
Genesee river, was in May, 1814. In anticipation of such an 
event, in addition to other organizations for defence in the neigh- 
borhood, Isaac W. Stone, one of the earliest Pioneers of Roch- 
ester, had been commissioned as a captain of dragoons, had en- 
listed a company of fifty men, and was stationed at Charlotte ; and 
the further measure of defence had been the sending to captain 
Stone, by the orders of General P. B. Porter, from Canandaigua, 
an 18 and a 4 pound cannon. The 18 pounder had been taken 

* Cooper's Naval History. 



518 PHELPS AKD GOEHAll's PURCHASE. 

down to the mouth of the river, and the 4 pounder planted upon a 
battery, or breast work, called " Fort Bender," which the citizens 
hkd thrown up on the River road to impede the crossing, by the ni- 
vaders, of the brid^re over Deep Hollow. The fleet was first descried 
by captain Stone and the citizens of Charlotte, a litte after sunset, 
upon which expresses were sent into the settlements ni diflerent di- 
rections, callino- for volunteers. In what is now the city of Roches- 
ter, there were then 32 men capable of bearing arms. These \yere 
orcranized durino; the forepart of the night, and armed with muskets 
that had been dcoosited with Harvey Ely & Co. ; or rather 30 of 
them, one refusing to volunteer, and another being held m reserve, 
with a cart, to take off the women and children ; so few in num- 
ber that the means of conveyance was quite ample. The formida- 
ble' force, marching through deep mud, and in rain, arriveu at 
Charlotte, at 2 o'clock in the morning. They had constituted 
Francis Brown and Elisha Ely their officers. In addition to the 
force of captain Stone, there was stationed at Charlotte,^ a volun- 
teer companv, under command of captain Frederick Kovve ; the 
men principally citizens of what is now the towns of Gates and 
Greece ; and Col. Atkinson's regiment, from what is now the north 
western towns of Monroe county, were either there previous y or 
as soon as the exigency required. The only fortification at Char- 
lotte, was a breast work, upon the bluflf, near the old bote , so loca- 
ted as to command the road leading up the bank from the wharf. 
Tt was composed of two tiers of ship timber, with a space between 
the tiers filled in with barn manure. 

The hastily collected defenders of their country were so impatient 
to meet the invaders, that before any demonstrations were made 
from the fleet toward shore, a volunteer party went out in an old 
boat that had been used as a lighter, just after day light, in a heavv 
fog, to reconnoitre ; the fog suddenly clearing away, they found 
themselves within range and reach of the guns of the whole British 
fleet. A gun boat from the fleet put out after them, but they suc- 
ceeded in makinsi good their retreat. 

All thincTs reniained in a state of suspense until about ten o clock 
'in the forenoon, when a flag of truce was seen to leave the British 
fleet and make toward the shore. At the request of captain 
Stoiie, captainsFrancis Brown and Elisha Ely went to receive it, 
with orders not to let the party who bore it enter the river, or dis- 
embark but to communicate with them from the Lake shore, l-or 
this purpose, thev went out upon a fallen tree, a short distance 
above the mouth' of the river, and tied a white handkerchief to a 
stick, as a signal. The British boats' crew approached, proposed to 
land, as is usual with the bearers of flags of truce, but the orders of 
captain Stone were tenaciously obeyed. While the parley was 
^olug on, a small party of armed men approached, anxious to Nva ch 
the progress of events. The British oflicer, a stickler tor all the 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PFECHASE. 519 

rules and regulations of war, enquired : — " Is it your custom to re- 
ceive a flag of truce under arms ?" To which captains Brown and 
Ely replied : — " You must excuse us, sir ; we are not soldiers, but 
citizens." The armed men, however, were requested to retire, 
when the British officer disclosed his business. It was to tender 
the assurance of Sir James Yeo, that if all the public property was 
surrendered, private property should be respected. To favor his 
mission, he presented a paper signed by several citizens of Oswego, 
the purport of which was, that as the government had left large 
quantities of stores and munitions at that place, without any ade- 
quate force to protect them, they had concluded not torisk their lives 
and property in the defence. "The message and the paper was for- 
warded to captain Stone, who decided at once that the citizen sol- . 
diers assembled at the mouth of the Genesee river, could not follow 
the precedent of their countrymen at Oswego. " Go back and tell 
the officer," said he, "that he may say to Sir James Yeo, that any 
public property that may be here, is in the hands of those who will 
defend it." 

Soon after this, a gun boat, sloop rigged, of from 90 to 100 tons 
burden, sailed out from the fleet, approached the mouth of the river, 
fired a six poimd shot, which compliment was returned from the 18 
pounder on the American battery. The gun boat then fired 15 or 
20 68 pound shots ; but one of them, striking the store-house, doing 
any damage. 

Soon atler this occurrence, Peter B. Porter arrived, and assumed 
command. Another flag of truce came from the British fleet at 4 
o'clock P. M., bringing a peremptory demand from Sir James Yeo, 
that the public property be delivered up; and the threat, that if the 
demand was not complied with, he would make a landing with his 
marines and 400 Indians. To this, Gen. Porter replied, through his 
aid, Maio)' Noon, that he would endeavor to take care of any force 
that Sir James felt disposed to send on shore ; accompanying the 
reply with an intimation that a third flag of truce sent upon the 
same errand, could not be respected. The demand for the surren- 
der of the public property was not repeated ; and nothing farther 
occurred, but an occasional shot from the fleet, which did no harm. 
Many of the heavy balls thrown on shore, were picked up, and have 
been preserved to this time, as memorials of the event. 

The whole force collected for defence, was at most, 800 ; a num- 
ber entirely insufficient to contend with one which could have been 
furnished from the British fleet. The reason why Sir James Yeo 
sailed down the Lake without executing his threat, was probably an 
over estimate of the strength of the American force ; many ingen- 
ious maneuvres having been resorted to, w^ell calculated to produce 
that result. Or, he may very wisely have concluded that a victory, 
won with even a small loss of men, would have been a barren one ; 
for with the exception of a small amount of public property, there 
was little in all the locality to encourage or provoke invasion. 



PHELPS AISTD GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

GATES. 



The territory embraced in the present towns of Gates, Greece 
and the city of Rochester on the west side of the River, had a 
separate organization, retaining the name of Northampton as early 
as 1809; the old town of Northampton, once embracing all west 
of the River, having been thus reduced in territory. The freehold- 
ers, within the limits named were then: — Charles Harford, John 
Van Sickles, Samuel Latta, Wm. Hencher, Jacob Teeples, Aug. B. 
Shaw, Abel Rowe, Moses Everett, Samuel Currier, Isaac Vande- 
venter, Benj. Cowles, Frederick Bushnell, Silas O. Smith, Daniel 
Budd. The votes given in 1809, lor members of Assembly, were 
for Levi Ward, Jr. 9, Chauncey Loomis 8. In 1810 the town gave 
on the Congress ticket, for Peter B. Porter 20, for Ebenezer F. Nor- 
ton 16. The first town meeting was held at the house of Jeremiah 
Olmsted, "under the direction of Zacheus Colby, Esq." Zhaceus 
Colby was elected supervisor, Hugh M'Dermid town clerk. Other 
town officers: — Thomas King, Richard Clark, John Williams, 
Mathew Dimmick, Moses Clark, Nathaniel Tibbies, Abel Rowe, 
Thomas Lee, Charles Harford, Frederick Rowe, Erastus Robinson, 
Asahel Wilkinson, Nathaniel Jones, Augustus B. Shaw. A bounty 
of " three cents for each rattle snake killed in town," was authorized. 
1810 — Samuel Latta was supervisor; the bounty upon rattle 
snakes was increased, and extended to those "killed in the banks 
of the River." 1811 — Zacheus Colby w^as supervisor; bounty 
on rattle snakes was increased to 12^ cents. 1812 — John Mastick 
was supervisor. 1813 — bounty on wolves w^as raised to $10. 
1816 — Roswell Hart was supervisor, John C. Rochester, town 
clerk ; it was voted that all former laws authorizing a bounty upon 
rattle snakes, black birds, and all other birds, quadrupeds &c., be 
repealed." The name of the town was changed to Gates in 1813; 
the town of Greece was set off in 1822. 

Previous to the close of the war of 1812, settlement was princi- 
pally confined to that part of the town which is now Greece. In 
1817, Ezra Mason, who will be named in connection with early 
events in Rochester, purchased the farm upon which he now re- 
sides, a mile and a half beyond the city bounds on the Lisle road, 
moved upon it, and commenced improvements ; the farthest advan- 
ced settler upon that road. The Hartford family had also made 
an improvement of about 30 acres on that road, and built a house ; 
upon the farm now occupied by JNIelancton Whitemore. In the 
same year, Richard Paul made a commencement upon the farm 
which w^as purchased by Philip Lisle, in 1818; now owned by 
William Otis. Lovell Thomas made a commencement upon the 
Lisle road in 1817. In 1819, William Williams advanced beyond 
Mr. Mason, and commenced improvements on the Chauncey larm. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 521 

As late as 1817, there were but a few settlers living in small open- 
ings of the forest, on the Buffalo road in Gates. The town em- 
bracing all of Rochester, on the east side of the river, has little of 
history disconnected with village and city. It contained but a 
scattered population — there were but few openings in the forest — 
when Rochester was started. The same remark is applicable to 
Brighton, beyond what will be found in the body of the work. 



PENFIELD. 



The advent of Gen. Fassett, his attempt to settle the town, will 
have been noticed in the body of the work. He sold the township 
to Gen. Silas Pepoon of Stockbridge, who sold it to Samuel P. 
Lloyd, who sold it to Daniel Penfield, or rather it passed into Mr. 
Penfield's hands by reason of some liabilities he had assumed for 
Mr. Lloyd. 

Mr. Penfield was a native of Guilford, Conn., a son of Isaac Pen- 
field. In the Revolution he had been the clerk of Oliver Phelps, in the 
commissary department ; after which he commenced the mercantile 
business in Hillsdale, where he was burned out during the Shav re- 
bellion. He subsequently established himself in the commission 
business in the city of New York. After becoming the proprietor of 
the town that afterwards took his name, he appointed Zachariah 
Seymour, Esq., his agent, under whose immediate auspices, settle- 
ment progressed, until Mr. Penfield emigrated to the town in 1810 
or '11. His wife was the daughter of Gen. John Fellows, who has 
been mentioned in connection with the first settlement of Bloom- 
field. He died in 1840, at the age of 82 years, after a long and active 
life, during more than forty years of which he was prominently inden- 
tified with the history of this region. Plis surviving sons are Henry 
F. Penfield, of Buffalo, and George Penfield, Poughkeepsle. Daugh- 
ters : — Mrs. Judge Gelston, of Black Rock, and Mrs. Andrew 
Young, of Maumee, whose first husband was Francis Brown, of 
Rochester. 

The permanent settlement of Penfield commenced in 1801. In 
that year Libbeus Ross and Calvin Clark settled a short distance 
north of the present village. The former died in 1816, the latter in 
1810; sons of both reside in Penfield. The settlers who came in 
in 1804, were: — Josiah J. Kellogg, Daniel Stillwell, Benj. Minor, 
Jonathan and David Baker, Isaac Beatty, Henry Paddock. Capt. 
Miner still survives, a resident of Rochester, in the 76th year of his 
age. Jonathan Baker was a keeper of an early public house in 
Penfield ; was an early auctioneer in Rochester ; a deputy sheriff 
of Ontario ; was at one period the keeper of the Eagle Tavern in 
Palmyra. Both of the brothers survive. Isaac Beatty died in 
33 



522 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

1835, aged 73 years ; Mrs. David Baker Mrs. Luke Thompson, Mrs. 
John D. Scovell, are his daughters. He was a captain in the Rev- 
olution, in the Jersey hue. Mrs. Paddock still survives. 

in 1806, Capt. Wm. M'Kinster opened the first store of goods, 
with which he connected a distillery. He was from. Hudson, the 
son of the Col. M'Kinster whose life was saved by Joseph Brant 
during the border wars. Mr. Fellows gave the author an interest- 
ing account of Brant's visit to Hudson in 1805. He was on his 
way to England, and had stopped there to see Daniel Penfield in 
reference to some land titles on the Grand River in Canada. The 
business delayed him for two weeks, in which time he received much 
attention from the citizens of Hudson, many of the men ot the Rev- 
olution calling upon him, who had met him in the battle field, or 
learned to dread him as the master spirit of border warfare. Col. 
M'Kinster, who lived at Livingston Manor, went down to Hudson, 
and the two had a happy meeting. It was the first time they had 
met since Brant had saved the Col's, life. Among the rest who 
came to see him was a locjuacious Dutchman who had known him 
before the Revolution. In a boasting and rather uncivil way, the 
Dutchman told him if he had met him in the border wars, he would 
have put a stop to his career. Brant parried the attack with a 
pleasant anecdote : — "And if you had met me," said he, " it would 

have been with you just as it was with your neighbor . He 

had boasted just as you are boasting now. In a skirmish I happened 
to meet him ; he took to his heels, and hardly stopped to take breath 
until he arrived in Albany, where a fire had just broke out, and the 
Dutchmen were in the streets crying, "braunt!" "braunt!!" — 
(hire! fire ! ) Stop])ing short he exclaimed in amazement : — " The 
d — d Indian has got here before me!' " 

While in Hudson, Brant was free to say that he regretted having 
espoused the British side in the Revolution ; and that in another 
contest such would not be his ])osition. 

Capt. M'Kinster was upon the frontier in the war of 1812, in com- 
mand of a company at tlie battle of Queenston. In 1814 Jacob 
B. Bryan became his business partner ; the firm was continued un- 
til 1820, until Mr. M'Kinstry returned to Hudson. Mr. Bryan, who 
was the early P. M. of Penfield, continued the business until 1841 ; 
died in 1843. 

Dr. Van Dake commenced the practice of medicine in Penfield 
in 1804, died in 1810; Dr. Ricli in 1808, died in ]814. Dr. Arms 
in 1810 ; removed to Michigan in 1833. where he died in 1838. 

Dr. Oliver Reynolds commenced practice in the village, in 1815; 
in 1818 removed to what is now Webster, where he now resides. 
Dr. Daniel Durfee settled in the east part of the town in 1818, 
where he still continues the practice oi his profession, at the age oi 
70 years. 

The first settled minister was the Rev. Asa Carpenter, as early 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 523 

as 1813; he was the founder of the Presbyterian church. He 
died in 1835. 

Mr. Penfield erected a grist and saw mill, at the Falls of the 
Irondequoit, in 1805. As has been observed, he did not become a 
resident until 181]. In 1813, Henry Ward (who has been named 
in connection with reminiscences of Tryon Town,) became his 
clerk, continuing as such until 18vil. Mr. Penfield erected a flouring 
mill at an expense of J$15,000. It is now owned by J. B. Roe. In 
1836, James K. Livingston erected a stone flouring mill, at an ex- 
pense of !f^30,000, which is now owned by Samuel Miller. 

There has grown up in the locality, a pleasant rural village, hav- 
ing all the signs of enterprise and prosperity ; of which much more 
could he said, but it is only primitive things that come within the 
design of this work. 

Henry Fellows was the son of Gen. John Fellows ; (see page 174.) 
After graduating at Williams' College, he studied law with Peter 
Van Schaik, at Kinderhook. In 1806 he was admitted to practice, 
and settled in Canandaigua, where he remained until 1812, when 
he removed to Penfield, where he still survives, the occupant of a 
fine farm, a successful agriculturist and horticulturist, exhibiting but 
little of physical, and nothing of mental infirmities usually conse- 
quent upon the age at which he has arrived. He was at one period 
a member of the State legislature, as all will remember, who are 
conversant with the political history of the State. He' is the father 
of five sons, all residing in Penfield ; of Mrs. Daniel E. Lewis, of 
Penfield, Mrs. John L. Livingston, of Shortsvillc, Mrs. John Van 
Buskirk, of Newark. 

It was not until 1805 or '6 that settlement commenced in north 
part of present town of Penfield, and what is now Webster. In those 
years and soon after, there went into that neighborhood, John Shoe- 
craft, Isaac Straight, Daniel Harvey, Deacon Foster, Paul Ham- 
mond, William Mann, William Harris, John Letts, Samuel Pierce, 
Michael Dunning, Justin Walker, William Straight, Gerard Dun- 
ning, Rufus Herrick, Robert Woodhull, Brooks Mason. 

Mr. Shoecraft was a native of Ulster county, a Pioneer upon the . 
Mohawk previous to the Revolution, an active partisan in the Bor- 
der wars ; was in Sullivan's expedition, and helped bury the mangled 
remains of Lieut. Boyd. In the command of a picket guard, near 
Cherry Valley, he with one Broadhead was taken prisoner by the 
Indians, and carried to Chemung. While their Indian guards were 
asleep, they made their escape, killing several of their captors. In 
the war of 1812, he was upon the frontier, in command of a com- 
pany of Silver Greys ; John Shew was his lieutenant. He died in 
1833, aged 77 years. Peter and John Shoecraft, of Penfield, are 
his sons ; two other sons and a daughter, Mrs. Fox, leside in Michi- 
gan. Mr. Letts was the pioneer tavern keeper, upon the state road ; 
still survives. The Dunnings were enterprising pioneers; it is per- 



524 PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 

haps worthy of record, that Michael built the first cider mill in all 
that region. 

William Mann is the son of John Mann, the founder of Mann's 
mills on the Irondequoit, in Pittsford. He settled where he now 
resides in 1808, upon 100 acres his father purchased, and upon 
which he had erected the first saw mill in all that region. William 
Mann added a grist mill in 1812. A life of industry, perseverance 
and endurance, has been that of most of all the early Pioneers ; 
even where all this has been common, there are some things in the 
history of William Mann worthy of note. Possessed of but a slight 
frame, with apparently a feeble physical constitution, his life has 
been one of constant and persevering toil, uninterrupted by sickness. 
Taking charge of his own saw mill in an early day, he has been 
known for weeks to have no ^leep, except during the intervals of the 
sets of his saw for each board ; in the labor of the field, he has been 
earliest and latest ; Ibremost at logging bees or raisings, where hard 
work was to be encountered ; and even now, there is with him but 
little falling ofl', or suspension of labor. The reader will be glad to 
learn that comfort and competence is the reward of all this ; but he 
seems to work on as if he did not know how to stop. 



REMINISCENCES OF WILLIAM MANN. 



In most of North Peiifield, what is now Webster, the forest was heavy* 
the ground wet, and it was hard beginning. The new settlers used to 
change works; many of them could not command a team, and had to work 
for their neighbors to procure team work. " Bees " wtadd be made to help 
the weak hiuided; all were friendly; sickness, privation, hardship, created 
unity and mutual regard for each other's inter^'st and welfart. Deer and 
other wild game were plenty ; salmon in the spring and fall would come 
several miles up the Four Mile creek. No money could be obtained in the 
earliest years ; in fact, our first resources for a little money and a little store 
trade, was when the brothers. Comings, and Amos Dunning, and Amos 
Harvey, started asheries,' and made market for ashes and black salts. The 
Ridge Road was an Indian trail. It was not cut out so as to be passable 
for wagons, until a little while before the war of 1812. There was great 
scarcity of food after the (old summer of 1816. I had ten acres of rye, 
stout and early ; five acres of it was cut and eaten before the remainder, 
or any other gr;iin in the neighborhood was cut. in 1807, Amos Stone, of 
Pittsford, harvested wheat, threshed and carried it to Mann's Mills to be 
ground in good condition, on the \lh of July. A peach tree was planted 
on my farm, in 1807; it lived and bore peaches until 1849. Solomon Ful- 
ler, in 1806, built a small mill on the Irondequoit, in Brighton; used the 
old mill stones, and mill irons of the Allan mill at the Falls; I have one of 
the gudgeons. The first school in North Pentield was organized in 1810, 



PEDELPS AISID GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 525 

in the Schoolcraft neighborhood; AVm. Harris, a Scotchman, was the first 
teacher. Methodist circuit riders were our first ministers. The Rev. So- 
lon Pierce oro-anized a Methodist church in 1812. 



Ebenezer Spear, (see page 381.) removed from Palmyra to Penn- 
field, in 1807; went into Schoolcraft neighborhood, via. Pittsford 
and Penfield village ; that being the then only road opened ; cut his 
own road from Mason's Corners. 

As early as 1800, Norton & Richards, of Canandaigua, bought of 
the English association the Salt Works tract, 3000 acres. There 
was upon the tract, about two miles north of Webster Corners, a 
salt spring that was first known as a much frequented deer lick. — 
As agents for the proprietors, Stephen Howard and Stephen 
Sprague, sunk a well 60 feet deep and obtained tolerably strong wa- 
ter ; 24 kettles were set, and salt of a good quality was manufactur- 
ed for a wide region of new settlements. The price was $1.00 per 
bushel. Christopher Prentice succeeded Howard and Sprague as 
agents ; as early as 1809 or '10 the business of salt manufacture fell 
into the hands of Daniel Hudson and his son-in-law, Joel Thayer. 
The property fell into the hands of Mr. Greig, the manufacture of 
salt was suspended, and the lands reserved to furnish timber for salt 
boiling forms now a landscape of beautiful highly cultivated farms. 

The first town meeting in Penfield, was held in 1811. William 
M'Kinster was elected Supervisor, Brooks Mason town clerk. 
Other town officers : — Nathaniel Case, Charles P.Moore, Josiah T. 
Kellogg, Caleb Lyon, John Shoecraft, David Lee, Benjamin Tripp, 
Willie Spear, Daniel Wilson, Joseph T. Shaw, Reuben Bailey. 
The following list of path masters will exhibit pioneer names, and 
indicate where settlements were made as late as 1811 : — John 
Stroger, Gurdon Lewis, David Camp, Stephen Butler, Peleg Ross, 
Henry Shew, Enos Havvley, Samuel Pierce, Ebenezer Spear, David 
Welsher, Joseph Hervey, Zoeth Eldridge, Elisha Smith, Rufus D. 
Stephens, Rufus Herrick, Jason Graves, Elisha Case, John Pierce, 
Michael Hibnor, Reuben Brace, Zaccheus Horton, Abner Brown, 
Wm. Cole, Jonathan Carpenter. William Spear was Supervisor in 
1812, '13, '14, '15. The town of Webster was taken from Penfield 
in 1838. 

Brooks Mason was an early Judge of Ontario, a Justice of the 
Peace, and in other respects, a prominent Pioneer. Russell B. 
Mason, of Penfield, and Isaac Mason, of Michigan, are his sons ; 
Mrs. Andrew Lincoln, of Perinton, is a daughter. 

N'oTE. — It lias been said that a Yankee Pioneer wanted nothing but an "axe, a 
gimblet and angiir, a drawing knife and jack plane" to build himself a house. Mr. 
Mann had not as much ;. but having a bellows and anvil he made his own gimblets. 
augurs and plane irons, with which he built not only frame buildings, but mills. 



526 PHELPS AND GOEHAMS PURCHASE. 

The village of Webster has grown up on the farm of Dr. Oliver 
Revnolds. The earliest merchants there, were Stearns & Col tiss ; 
the permanent ones, William and Timothy Corning. 



PITTSFORD. 



The names of the first eight heads of families will be found on 
page 431. Thev were principally from Salem, Washington coun- 
ty. Israel Stone died in early years ; his widow became the wife 
of Paul Richardson, and after his death that of Moses Barr : she 
died a few years since at an advanced age. Eri Stone, of Pitts- 
ford is a son of Israel Stone. Simon Stone died 15 or 20 years 
since. Urrin Stone, of Pittsford, is a son of his. Jesihel (not Jo- 
seph, as on page 431,) Farr, died soon after 1812 ; the death of Mrs. 
Farr was the first that occurred in " Stonetown ; " Jesihel Farr, of 
Pittsford is a son ; a daughter became the wife of Caleb Nye. Silas 
Nye came into the new region at an advanced age ; had held a 
commission in the Revolution ; he was the first supervisor of the 
town; died in early years. His surviving sons are, Nathan and 
Silas Nye, of Pittsford. Nathan who is now 78 years of age, has 
been a supervisor of the town, and justice of the peace. A daugh- 
ter of Silas -\ye the elder, became the wife of one of the brothers, 
Beckwiths, early merchants in Palmyra ; another, the wife of Carmi 
Hart, of Pittsford. Thomas Cleland died soon after 1830. Josiah 

Gimminson did not become a permanent resident, neither did 

Dodge, who was one of the proprietors of the town, Alexander 
Dunn was a son in law of Silas Nye. 

Other Pioneers, as early as 1790, and mostly before 1800: — 
Anson Stone, John Stone, Amos Stone, Samuel Stone, Daniel Per- 
rin, (the father of Darius Perrin, P. M. Rochester.) Caleb Hopkins, 
V/m. Acker, Noah Norton, Thomas Billinghurst, Wm. Agate, Rich- 
ard Welsh, Nehemiah Hopkins, Robert Holland, Henry Bailey, 
Jared Barker, Elihu Doud, Nathan Calhoun, Ezra Patterson, Ben- 
jamin Weeks, Daniel Brown, (an early Baptist preacher,) Israel 
Canfield, Benjamin Miller, William HHl, Robert Holland. Wm. 
Acer, was the father of John Acer, the widely known landlord of 
Pittsford ; Ezra Acer, of Pittsford, is a son ; daughters became the 

wives of Theron Noble, Dwellie Clapp, and May. Caleb 

Hopkins was breveted a Colonel in the war of 1812, had com- 
mands upon the Niagara frontier, and at the mouth of the Genesee 
River ; was an active and efficient partizan in all the trying crisis; 
Marvin Hopkins, late supervisor of Pittsford is his son. Nathan 
Calhoun still survives at the age of 73 ; has been a supervisor ot 
the town 8 years, a magistrate 30 years ; is the father of eight 
daughters, 6 of whom have become wives. 



PHELPS AKD GOPJI aim's PURCHASE. 52 Y 

Simon Stone 2d, a connexion of the numerous family of that name 
who were pioneers in the locality, was the primitive lawyer. He 
was located in practice soon after 1800 ; filled the office of super^ 
visor, and justice of the peace ; he died 1 5 or 16 years since. Wm. 
G. Taylor was the next practicinp; lawyer, locating in early years ; 
he emigrated to the west. Ira Bellows, who has been so long iden- 
tified with the locality, yet survives, in the practice of the profession. 

The early physicians were. Dr. John Ray and Dr. Daniel Rood; 
succeedincr' them were, Dr. Achilles G. Smith, and Dr. Hartwell 
Carver. Dr. Carver is a lineal descendant of John Carver who 
came over in the Mayflower, and of Jonathan Carver, the ear- 
ly western explorer. He was a graduate of Yale College, settled at 
Pittsford soon at^ter the war of 1812. Although making that his 
hailing; place, a spirit of enterprise and adventure, has made him a 
traveller in Europe, a resident in New Orleans, in Florida, and in 
Minnesota; few men are more widely known, or have obtained 
more professional celebrity. Though a wandering bachelor, he 
would seem to be becoming a fixture now, as he is building the un- 
ique dwelling place, that may be observed upon the outskirts of the 
pleasant rural village of Pittsford. 

Although Israel Stone in an early day, did a little in the mercan- 
tile way, the first considerable mercantile establishment was founded 
by Dr.\4. G. Smith, Nathan Nve, Caleb Hopkins and John Acer. 
Samuel Hildreth, a brother of 'the Hildreth's of Vienna, was an 
early merchant, tavern keeper and stage proprietor ; founding the 
first' line of public conveyance from Canandaigua to Rochester, 
and with others, the first on the Riga road from Rochester to Can- 
andaigua; his widow survived, until recently; John Hildreth, of 
Pittsford is a son ; Mrs. Babcock and Mrs. Richardson of Pittsford 
are his daughters. Augustus Elliott was an early merchant and 
distiller ; and in an early day erected an iron forge in Penfield. He 
was the founder of the fine private mansion that was afterwards oc- 
cupied by James K. Guernsey. 

Glover Perrin who is mentioned as the pioneer of Perrinton, got 
tired of his solitary life there, vacated his log cabin soon after the 
death of his friend Caleb Walker, and became the pioneer landlord. 
He died childless ; John Acer was his successor. 

Pittsford village, in point of time, may be said to have been a 
Pioneer locality "next to Canandaigua, and as early as Geneseo, 
Avon, Palmvra and Lyons. The fine bluff" which forms its site, at 
the base of which was a valuable spring, drew the attention of the 
early adventures to the spot. There were long years in which the 
principal business of a wide region was transacted there ; and though 
it is now one of the out posts of an over-shadowing city, time was, 
(and that within the memory of hundreds who survive,) when the 
few settlers in the small openings of the dense forest on the site 
of that city, thought themselves out in the world again, when they 



628 

had reached that village, where there were dry streets, comfortable 
pubhc and private dwelHngs, merchants, mechanics, lawyers, and 
doctors, and " stated preaching." 

The town of Northneld was organized in 1794. It was then all 
of what is now Pittslbrd, Penfield, Perrinton, Henrietta, Brighton, 
Irondequoit, and'WeF^ster. The first town meeting was in 1796. 
It was "opened by Phineas Bates." Silas Nye was chosen super- 
visor, John Ray town clerk. Other town officers, Noah Norton, 
Caleb Hopkins, Glover Perrin, Jonas Sawen, Jesihel Farr, Aaron 
Stone, Ezra Patterson, Samuel Bennett, Henry Bagley, Alexander 
Dunn, William Acer, Paul Richardson. In 1798, the name of the 
town was changed to Boyle. In 1813, the town of Boyle was 
divided into three towns, Penfield, Perrinton and Smallwood , and 
in 1814 the town of Brighton was erected ; and in the same year, 
what is now Pittsford and Henrietta^ was made to constitute a town 
which was called Pittsford. Henrietta was erected in 1818. There 
was no such town as " Stonetown ;" this was the early designation of 
the settlement ; as in the case of " Boughtontown,'"" " Pittstown," &c. 

A school was organized in what is now Pittsford, as early as 1794 ; 
a Congregational church in 1809. 

John Mann, saw the Genesee country immediately after the close 
of the Revolution — as early as 1784. A resident of New Jersey, 

in company with Allen Nixon and Scritchfield, he came 

through the wilderness from the Delaware River, following the 
Indian trails to Niagara River. Failing to make some contempla- 
ted arrangements with Gov. Simcoe in Canada, for a settlement 
there, the party returned to New Jersey. Upon the Genesee river 
they made the acquaintance of Ebenezer Allan, who offered to ob- 
tain for Mr. Mann the Indian grant of 500 acres of the present site 
of the city of Buffalo, for the horse he rode. Mr. Mann visited the 
country again in 1803 in company with his son, Wm. Mann of Pen- 
field. He found at that early period a sister of his wife — a Mrs. 
Field — who had settled with a large family of sons and daughters, 
in a small Indian village at the mouth of the Wiscoy, in Allegany 
county. In 1804 Mr. Mann moved his famly, consisting of a wife 
and ten children, to Victor, and renting land of Enos Boughton, 
raised 500 bushels of wheat for his own share, which he exchanged 
with Zachariah Seymour, of Canandaigua, for the hundred acres of 
land in Penfield, upon which his son now resides. In 1805 he 
bought of Simon Stone fifty acres of land on the Irondequoit near 
the great embankment, upon which Mr. Stone had erected a small 
grist mill and saw mill soon after 1790. Mr. Mann re-built the mills 
in 1812. As " Stone's mills" and " Marin's mills," they were known 
in early years throughout a wide region. Millwrights of the pre- 
sent day may learn something of the expedients of the early period 
in which the sawmill was built; ol what " necessity, the mother of 
invention," used to accomplish ; from the fact, that the saw used in 



PHELPS AND GORHAlVl's PUECHASE. 529 

Mr. Stone's primitive mill was made by Samuel Bennett, a black- 
smith, by welding together old scythes. Mr. Mann died 1824, aged 
75 years. His son, other than the one already noticed in connec- 
tion with Penfield, is Jacob Mann, of Pittsford ; daughters became 
wives of Wm. B. Jobson, of Canandaigua, Calvin R. Cheeny, of 
Michigan ; Mrs. Asahel Baker, of Iowa. 

..Sj^ephen Lusk, whose early advent is noticed in connection with 
Brighton, became a resident of Pittsford in 1807, establishing there 
a primitive tannery, and continuing it for many years. He is now 
the occupant of a "tine farm, a mile east of the village on the Victor 
road. 



PERRINTON. 



It has little of pioneer history distinct from that of Pittsford, with 
which its territory was blended previous to 1810; and it is one of 
those localities from which the author has been favored with no 
account of its early settlers. It will be observed that its original 
proprietor made a commencement there as early as 1790, and died 
in that year at Canandaigua; his companion, Glover Perrin, leaving 
soon after; it was several years before its settlement was again 
attempted. Among the earliest settlers were, Jesse Perrin, Asa 
Perrin, Edward Perrin, Major Norton, John Scott, Levi Treadwell, 
Richard Treadwell, John Peters, and Gideon Ramsdell. 



With reference to the uplands of Victor, Mendon, Pittsford, Per- 
rinton, Penfield and Irondequoit ; oak openings, and to a small ex- 
tent, pine plains, a marked change has occurred. It was an inviting 
soil when settlement commenced ; far easier beginning upon it, and 
making more speedy returns for labor expended, than tJie heavily 
timbered lands. But long years of discouragement and stinted 
crops succeeded. The sandy, light soil became almost unproduc- 
tive, in some instances their cultivation was abandoned, and the 
vallies and intervals became the chief dependence. In Victor, as 
late as 1820, uplands were sold as low as from $3 to $G per acre. 
Since about that period a change has been going on, until from the 
poorest, these lands have become, if not the best, equal in value to 
any in all this garden of the State. Their prices now range from 
$40 to $80 per acre ; in Pittsford, farms have been sold this sum- 
mer as high as $80. Time, and each successive cultivation, im- 
proves the soil. 

Omitting any speculations or any theories of his own, the author 



530 

will give the opinions of others, as to the cause, or causes of all this. 
Mr. Wm. C. Dryer, of Victor, a man of intelligence and careful 
observation, says that the frequent burning over of these openings 
that preceded settlement and cultivation, had rendered inert and 
unproductive, the surface soil, while it had been making deposites in 
the sub-soil, of some of the mo?t essential elements of vegetation, 
which deeper plowing has been developing, and other of improved 
cultivation, making available. The late Timothy Backus, of Le Hoy 
and Lockport, (one of nature's students, as well as one of her " noble- 
men,") a few years before his death, in conversation with the author, 
was citing the fact that the first board of commissioners, sent out 
by our government to explore the peninsula of Michigan, made a 
report, which is upon record, in substance, that it was unfit for hab- 
itation or cultivation, and would never repay the cost of survey and 
sale. "They judged," said he, "that the heavily timbered lands were 
generally too wet for cultivation, and that the burr oak openings, 
which predominated, were unproductive barrens, because they saw 
upon them but stinted herbage, and a feeble undergrowth of shrub- 
bery. There was in the soil rich and abundant elements of agri- 
culture, as time and experiment has demonstrated, but it was in the 
sub-soil ; the surface soil had been depleted by fire, and deteriorated, 
or poisoned by the acids of the oak and chestnut leaves. This 
remark is applicable to the same kind of lands in our own region ; 
the new settlers could at first realize but stinted crops upon them. 
Even now, wherever the oak or chestnut leaf has fallen and decayed 
lor a long succession of years, it requires time and cultivation to 
make the soil productive." 



MENDOK 



Township 11, R. 5, what is now Mendon, containing 23,040 
acres, was the last sale made by Phelps and Gorham previous to the 
sale made to vSir Wm. Pulteney and his associates. The purchasers 
were " Franklin and Boughton," or the entry of sale is to them. 
The township was soon subdivided, and Jeremiah Wadsvvorth be- 
came the owner of 1 1,000. Other large early proprietors of the re- 
mainder of the town were, Catlin & Ferris, Waddington & Pepoon, 
Jonathan Ball. Ebenezer Barnard, of Hartford, Conn., became 
the owner of half of the Wadsworth tract. The whole 1 1 ,000 acres 
was settled under the auspices principally of James Wadsworth, 
either as owner or agent. The Ball tract was sold to Augustus and 
Peter B. Porter, and Zel ulon Norton. Zebulon Norton, from Ver- 
mont, was the Pioneer in the township, erecting mills as early as 
1791, on the Honeoye Falls. He died in 1814 ; his son Ezra, upon 



PHELPS AND goeham's purchasI:. 531 

whom the care of the mill and farm devolved in early years, died 
two years previous. 

Sales of farm lots were commenced by James Wadsworth, on 
the 11,000 acre tract, in June, 1793; in that and the succeeding 
year, sales were made to "Dan Williams, Cornelius Treat, Elijah 
Williams, Benjamin Parks, Ebenezer Ratlibun, Rufus Parks, Nathan 
Williams, Moses Everett, Wm. Hickox, Lorin Wait, Reuben Hill;" 
not all of whom, it is presumed, became actual settlers. The prices 
they paid were from $1 25 to $2 per acre. Treat, WilliamS; 
Hickox, and Parks, " all from Berkshire," were actual settlers in 
1794. Other early Pioneers in the township, in succession, all be- 
fore the close of 1800, were, John Parks, Jonas Allen, Joseph Bryan, 
Samuel Lane, Charles Foote ; and soon after 1800, Moses Rowell, 
Elijah Leiand. Charles Foote, of Mendon, and Elias Foote, of Alex- 
ander, Genesee Co., are sons of Charles Foote ; daughters became 
wives of Enos Blossom and Gains Lane ; other sons and daughters re- 
side at the west. Capt. Treat died in 1848, at the advanced age of 81 
years; his wife, whose first husband was Benjamin Palmer, an early 
settler at Palmyra — father of Geo. Palmer of Buffalo — died in 1849. 
Capt. Treat was not only an early settler, but for more than half 
a century was a prominent citizen of the town, of whom much 
could be said, as in hundreds of other instances, if the necessary 
briefness of these sketches would allow of it. Dr. John Jay Treat 
and Eilery Treat, of Rochester, Nelson Treat, upon the home- 
stead, and Joseph Treat, residing at the west, are surviving sons. 
Amaziah, Calvin, and Thomas Parks, of Mendon, are the sons of 
Benjamin Parks. Joseph Williams, of Canandaigua, is the son of 
Nathan Williams. Rufus, John, Benjamin, and James Parks, of 
Mendon, are the sons of John Parks, who still survives. The sur- 
viving sons of Capt. Jonas Allen are, Ethan, in California; Daniel, 
residing upon the homestead ; and George, a magistrate in Mendon ; 
a daughter is the widow of the late Dr. Milton Sheldon. Of eight 
sons of vSamuel Lane, but one survives. Gains Lane of Rochester. 
Judge John Bryan, of Michigan, is the only surviving son of Joseph 
Bryan. 

Other early settlers of Mendon: — Marvin Smith, Henry Shel- 
ters, Jacob Young, John and William Dixon." John Moore, John 
Sims. Benjamin of Mendon, and Isaac Smith, of Rush, are sons 
of Marvin Smith. Lyman Shelters, of Mendon, and Cabot Shel- 
ters of Bloomfield, are sons of Henry Shelters. Jacob Young was 
an early and enterprising manufacturer at the Falls ; now survives, 
as do in fact, a larger number of the early Pioneers named, than is 
usual in other localities. Amos Dixon at the Honeoye Falls, is a 
son of John Dixon. 

The early physician was Dr. Knickerbacker, who was the foun- 
der of Knickei'backer Hall, Avon, now a resident of Rochester. 
He was succeeded by Dr. Harvey Allen, who is yet in practice. 



532 PHELPS Amy goeham's purchase. 

Dr. VVm. Brown was the early physician in East Mendon, is now 
a resident of Pembroke, Genesee county. 

Zebulon Townsend was an early settler on what was called 
" Abraham's Plains," still sm'vives, at the age of 75 years. Surviv- 
ing sons are : — Geo. P. Townsend, an Attorney, in Penfield, Jo- 
seph B.. of Mendon, Jeremiah, Seth and Gideon, of Marengo, Mich- 
igan. Mrs. John R. Stuart and Mrs. Orra Case, of Honeoye Falls, 
and Mrs. S. N. Degroff, of Marengo, are his daughter*. 

Timothy Barnard, who was the brother of the early land propri- 
etor, (but not resident,) named above, removed from the city of 
Hartford — exchanging a comfortable home for a log cabin in the 
new region — in 1808. He died in 1847 or '8, aged 91 years. It 
is a singular fact, that although he brought a large family into the 
new country, and his descendants in the second degree became nu- 
merous, his was the first death that occurred in the whole family 
circle. He was an early Judge of Ontario, and in other respects a 
prominent and useful citizen. He was the father of Daniel D. 
Barnard, the U. S. Minister to Prussia, of Timothy and Henry 
Barnard who reside on the homested. 

Among the reminiscences of the early settlers of Mendon, is that 
of an oak stump, on the farm of Capt. Treat, nine feet in diameter. 
The tree was supposed to have been cut down by the Indians. On 
the farm of Mr. Parks, a section of a hollow sycamore was cut off, 
6 feet in length, through which a pair of oxen, of ordinary size, was 
driven in their yoke. John Stimpson, a trapper, caught on Capt. 
Treat's farm, 9 wolves in one night, for which he received a bounty 
of i90'; a large sum of money in those primitive times. Wolves 
pursued Capt. Treat one night for miles ; and nothing but the supe- 
rior speed of his horse saved him from becoming an inhabitant of 
an older settled country, "where wolves cease from troubling." Dr. 
Joel Brace, the early physician in Victor, was going from Norton's 
Mills towards home, on" the old Indian trail. When near what is 
now Miller's corners, his horse suddenly stopped, and looking ahead 
of him he saw in his path a huge panther, crouched and ready to 
spring upon him. An attempt to turn around would have been fatal. 
With much presence of mind he suddenly spread his umbrella, and 
shaking it, the animal walked off". 

The town was organized in 1813. Jonas Allen was the first 
supervisor; Daniel Dunks town clerk. A Baptist church was or- 
ganized in 1809 ; the first pastor, the Rev. Jessee Bray man ; a Con- 
gregational church in 1817 or '18, the first settled minister the Rev. 

Note. — "Tl;e empire region of the Empire State," is a designation occasionally 
given to our favored and prosperous locality ; rather vauntingly perhaps ; but it has 
really come to be something more than a figure of speech. From tlie "Genesee Coun- 
try," a -wilderness when our national existence commenced, and for long years after- 
wards, there has gone out a President of the United States ; a Post Master General ; 
a Foreign Minister ; and a Governor and Lieutenant Governor of our State ; at one 
and the same period. 



PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 533 

Nathaniel Taylor. The early mechanics were : — Nathaniel Wil- 
liams, Wm. Hickox, Nathaniel Bryan, Samuel Lane ; Gen. Chalotte 

Cady, of" Michigan, was the first merchant. Elliott erected 

the frame of the first saw mill on the Irondequoit ; the mill was 
owned and finished by Jonas Allan. The first grist mill on Pond 
Brook was built by Haze. 



RUSH. 



Jeremiah Wadsworth, was the purchaser of 5,000 acres, and "Mor- 
gan and his associates, of 4,750 acres of what is now Rush, of 
Phelps and Gorham. 

The author is unable to give the years in which each of the prim- 
itive settlers came in, but those named were the earliest, and gener- 
ally in the order named. 

Joseph Morgan, who had first settled on- the west side of the river, 
was one of the earliest settlers of the town, his farm the same 
which now constitutes the homested of Joseph Sibley — the beau- 
tiful sweep of flats and upland at the junction of the Honeoye creek 
with the Genesee river. The property passed from Morgan into 
the hands of Spraker, one of the well known Mohawk fam- 
ily of that name, who died there. 

In 1801, to the kw settlers that were previously located in the 
township, there was added a considerable number from Frederick 
county, Maryland : — The families of Philip Price, Chrystal Thom- 
as, Jacob Stull, John Bell Otto. 

The family of Philip Price, consisted of seven sons and one 
daughter. The sons were : — John Price, of Gorham, Ontario 
county, who was for many years one of the county Judges of On- 
tario, for one or two terms a representative in the Legislature, and 
a member of the State Convention of 1821. Peter Price, who in 
the war of 1812 was a Lieutenant in a volnnteer corps, and served 
upon the Niagara Frontier. He was an early Judge of Monroe 
county, a Justice of the Peace, and for 18 years was the supervisor 
of Rush, and for several years chairman of the board of Supervi- 
sors of Monroe county. Improving the opportunities that judicial 
offices gave him, by study, he was admitted to practice in the court 
of Common Pleas, of Monroe, and ultimately in the Supreme Court, 
He was emphatically a self made man, and what is not always the 
case with self made men, the work was well done. He died after a 
long and useful life, in Feb. 1848, leaving an only daughter who is 
the wife of A. D. Webster, a merchant in West Henrietta. His 
wife, who was the daughter of Nathan Jeffords, still survives. Ja- 
cob Adam, and Philip Price, emigrated to Michigan in 1824. Geo. 



534 PHELPS AND GOEHAJVl's PIJECHASE. 

Price resides in Rush on the homestead of the family. The daugh- 
ter was the wife of Jacob Stull. 

The surviving sons of Jacob Stull, are: — John P. Stull, George 
Stull, James Stull, all residents of Rush. Chrystal Thomas, died in 
1844. He erected the first saw mill in Rush, on Stony Brook, in 
1805. Jacob, Chrystal, and David Thomas are his sons. Mrs. 
Mook, of Henrietta, is a daughter. John and Frederick Bell of 
Rush, are the sons of the early emigrant from Maryland, John Bell. 

In addition to these that have been named, there were settled in 
Rush previous to 180G, Thomas Daily, who still survives. The 
Harmon iamily, who were afterwards early settlers in Sweeden, 
and original proprietors of a large portion of the village plat of 
Brockport. John Hartwell ; a surviving son is Thomas Hartwell, 
of Rush. Joseph M'Farland ; the father of Peter M'Farland, of 
Rush. Zephaniah Branch. A large family of Gofis, of which the 
early and widely known Elder Goff, was a member. 

Joseph Sibley came to the Genesee country in 1804 — m 1806, 
located in Rush. He was from Renssealer county, N. Y. Like 
nine-tenths of all the early adventurers, he came into the wilderness 
with little to aid him in his enterprise ; but with an indomitable 
spirit of perseverance, he looked at its rugged features undismayed, 
and boldly and successfully wrestled through long years with all of 
its hardships and privations. With youth and health, courage and 
fortitude, he seized 

" The axe that ■wondrous instrument, 
That like the taUsman, transforms 
Deserts to fields and cities," 

and first in one locality, and then in another, made openings in 
the forest ; and now in his declining years, favored with almost un- 
interupted health, and a sound constitution, he is enjoying the fruits 
of his labors — is settled down in the midst of broad, highly culti- 
vated fields, constituting one of the many large and beautiful farms 
in the immediate valley of the Genesee. 

In 1812 he changed his residence from Rush to Riga, and was one 
of the first to commence clearing a farm in the neighborhood of 
Churchville ; and after that was" a resident of Chili, founding the 
milling establishment on Black creek, now owned by D. Cope. 
When in anticipation of the declaration of war, Gov. Tompkins 
ordered drafts from the militia, he was one of the six hundred vol- 
unteers that supplied the necessity of a draft, and promptly marched 
to the frontier, under the command of Col Swift. He was an early 
supervisor of Genesee and Monroe, a member of the State Legis- 
lature; for five years a canal superintendant ; and more recently 
the collector of the port of Genesee. His wife, the sister of Elihu 
and Samu2l Church, of Riga, to whom he was married in 1807, still 
survives ; a more than usual mortality has prevailed with their largo 



PHELPS AND goehWs pueohase. 535 

family of sons and daughters ; of a family of ten children, most of 
whom became adults, but three survive : — Horace J. Sibley a stu- 
dent of law in Rochester; Mrs. John P. Stull, of Rush ; and Mrs. 
James M'Gill, of Cincinnatti. 



REMINISCENCES OF JOSEPH SIBLEY. 



When I came to Rush, in 180G, there was no surveyed road in the 
township. The fall previous, iMr. VVadsworth had contracted with Major 
Markham to cut out a wood's road as far as the line of Henrietta; but it 
was several years before it was carried any farther. The first surveyed 
road through the town and West Henrietta, was the State road from Ark- 
port to the mouth of the Genesee river. A road was surveyed from the 
line of Mendon through the " Goff settlement," in 1807; and in 1808, a 
brido-e was built by the volunteer labor of settlers, over the Honeoye, near 
where State road crosses, In 1809, a bridge was built over the Honeoye, 
in West Rnsh, on river road, by the town. In 1817, the bridge on the 
State I'oad, went off in a freshet, and about the same period, Austin Wing, 
a brotiier of Dr. Wing, of Albany, was drowned in crossing the stream. 

There were large patches of rushes both on tlais and uplands, along the 
river and the Honeoye Creek; the locality was called " Hush Bottom " — 
thence the name of the town. Cattle would winter well and thrive on 
the rushes; the Wadsworths would send large droves here to winter, and 
many were sent from Lima, Bloomfield, and Victor, x he rushes finally run 
out by being repeatedly fed down. 

The greatest amount of sickness and death that I knew of in any locali- 
ty in the Genesee country, was as late as 1821, in the settlements along 
on Black and Sandy Creek. The prevailing disease had all the distinctive 
character of the yellow fever, and in a dense population, woul I have been 
equally as fatal. It was principally owing to the erecdon of mill dams, 
and consequent flooding of timbered lands. When the mill dams were 
drawn off, the sickness subsided. In one of the earlier years, when Riga 
and Chili were one town, it was ascertained that GO died in a populaUon of 
less than 3,000. At one period, in a population of 83, within the distance 
of 1| miles alono- on the Braddock's Bay road, 63 were sick, principally 
with billions intermittents. In many seasons, along on the river, the per 
cent of sickness was greater than has ever prevailed in any of the large 
cities of the United States, not exceptmg even the seasons of cholera. 
This was the case in many of the early years. I have seen instances 
when enUre famihes would be prostrated, deaths would occur without any 
medical aid, and sometimes even without nursing. Physicians would be 
worn out, over-run with business; often it would be twenty-four hours al- 
ter thev received a call before they could attend to it. 

In 1805, crops were very light, and before the harvest of 1806, there 
was much suffering for food; wheal went up to ^ 50 per bushel. The 
season of 1804 had been very wet, espcc'ally along about corn harvest; 
and the seed corn planted in 1805, seemed to have lost in a great measure 



536 PHELPS Am) goeham's puechase. 

its germinating principle; much of it rotted in the ground. The harvest 
of 1806 was an abundant one; many fields of wheat were fit to cut on 
the 4th of Jul3% Wheat and corn became a drug; neither would sell for 
store trade, nor could they be bartered for the ordinary necessaries 
of hfe. I chopped, cleared, and sowed to wheat, twenty acres the fii st year 
I commenced in Rush. I harvested from G to 700 bushels, but could sell it 
for nothing that I wanted, except in a few instances. I gave a blacksmith 
in Bloomtield, a bushel of wheat for putting a small wire bail into a tea 
kettle. Leather, wheat would not buy : and so we had to go barefoot. 
This state of things produced a large amount of distilling, and whiskey 
became far too cheap for the good of the new country. The seasons of 
1807, '8' '9, '10, '11, were productive, but that of 1812 was unproductive, 
and they grew worse until 1816 inclusive. In that year, most of the 
wheat was not fit to cut until September; the corn crop was almost entire- 
ly lost; but little summer crops of any kind were raised. From the 6th to 
the 12th of June, there was frost every night. I sold pork that year for 
$10 per cwt., fresh; and beef for $6. The harvests of 1817, '18, were 
tolerable ones: from 1819 to '24, they were universally prolific. In 1819, 
wheat went down to 31 cents per bushel. 

In early years, there was none but a home market, and that was mostly 
barter: — It was so many bushels of wheat for a cow; so many bushels for 
a, yoke of oxen, &c. There was hardly money enough in the c ountry to 
pay taxes. In the way of clothmg, buckskin breeclies and those made 
from hemp grown upon the river, were quite common. A young man 
would then have to work six months for such a suit of clothes as he could 
now buy for $12. Few wore shoes or boots, except in winter. I have 
seen men who are now wealthy farmers, barefoot long after snow came. 
The price of a common pair of cow-hide boots would be $7, payable in 
wheat at 62 cents per bushel. Judge Peter Price told me that the first 
horse he ever owned in Rush, he paid ten bushels of corn for shoeing. 
As a matter of necessity, horses mostly had to be used without shoeing. 
When we began to have a few sheep, ii, cost us a great deal of trouble to 
keep them from the wolves; the coarsest wool was worth 50 cents per lb., 
and cash at that. Woolen shirts were a luxury ; the most common ones 
were of flax and hemp. 

Mono- in years previous to the war, there was extensive hemp culture 
on the river. The Wadsworths introduced it, raising much themselves, and 
furnishino- seed for others; upon their Honeoye farm, in 1811, 18 acres of 
hemp were raised. Samuel M. Hopkins, and his brother, Mark Hopkins, 
were largely engaged in the business at one time, at what is now Cuyler- 
ville. The principal market was at Albany. It finally became a losing 
business; cultivation, harvesting, preparation for market, transportation, cost 
too much. It was abandoned after an experiment of a i'ew years. 

Game was very plenty:— The hills of Rush, Avon, Caledonia, Wheat- 
land, valleys and uplands, were favorite ranges for the deer. In the win- 
ter of 1806, '7, a deep snow came suddenly in December — a thaw suc- 



NoTE.— In 1816, the author paid some Indian women at Mount Morris, $2 per 
bushel for a one horse wagon load of com, and helped poimd it out in the bargam. 



PHELPS AJSD goehajvi's puechase. 537 

oeeded, leaving the openings pretty much bare, but there was eight or ten 
inches of snow left in the woods, which was suddenly crusted over. This 
drove the deer, in large flocks, into the openings. They were in good con- 
dition, and we could easily kill all we wanted. The Indians of Canawau- 
gus had fine sport, and laid in stores of venison. In all the early years, 
those Indians were frequently upon the trails that went down to Ironde- 
quoit, the Falls, and the mouth of the Genesee river. On their return, 
their ponies would be loaded down with the spoils of the chase, the 
fish-hook and spear. 

The winter I have spoken of, was generally a very severe one; toward 
the last of March and beginning of April, there was a heavy fall of snow; 
through Canandaigua, Phelpstown, and in all that region, it was from four 
to five feet in depth; on the river, three and half feet. All the roads were 
entirely blocked up. A thaw came suddenly and swept the flats of the 
river throughout their whole extent. It was a singular fact, that the robin 
remained in the country throughout this generally hard winter. In the 
winter of 1808, '9, another deep snow and crust occurred. The wolves 
and dogs made terrible havoc among the deer ; the poor creatures would 
take to the roads, and flee into farmers' yards for refuge. Venison, in the 
way of meat, was a great help to new settlers. I have never heard of a 
region where deer were so plenty. 

In the winter of 1815, we had a general wolf hunt, or drive, as it proved 
to be. The inhabitants of the whole region turned out, and surrounded 
all the swamps in Gates, Chili, Wheatland, and Caledonia; sounded horns, 
fired guns, halloed, shouted, and raised a din of discordant sounds. 
Many deer, bear and foxes were killed; the wolves fled, and after that, 
there was but few seen in this region. 

Ducks were abundant in the river and tributary streams in early years. 
There was the wood duck, another species bearing a strong resemblance to 
the common tame duck, shell drakes, dippers, or divers; and occasionally, 
the real canvass back. Wild geese would come every fall and spring. 

Pigeons would in some seasons come in large flocks, and seriously injure 
the newly sown crops. I have known an hundred dozen to be caught in a 
net in one day. In 1812, they made a roost in a cedar swamp on Dugan's 
creek They occupied the trees of seventy-five or eighty acres; there 
were, in some instances, as many as thirty nests on a, single tree. The 
young squabs were brought away by the inhabitants in cart loads. When 
the young ones left the nests, they would go off" and remain about the 
neighborhood in flocks by themselves, and it was several months before the 
old and young ones mingled. 

The black squirrel was a great nuisance in early years. I have seen 
thirty on a single tree. They would sometimes destroy whole fields of 
corn. They have been gradually diminishing. 

The advent of the crow in this region was in 1817. They had been 
preceded by the raven, their natural enemy, as I am led to infer. The 
crow made cautious and gradual approaches; at first, they flew over, then 
ventured to light on the tops of the highest trees, in which position uuiu 
would seem to be determining if it were safe to locate. It was some yea. 
before they became permanent residents, and had fairly expelled the ra 
34 



538 PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 

In after years, when a raven would venture to revisit the region, the crows 
would seem to be gathered here and there in council, to determine how 
the intruder was to be expelled. The occupancy of the crow, was the re- 
sult of conquest. 

In the earliest years, there were a few turkey buzzards upon the river, 
but they soon disappeared. A constant revolution has been going on 
with birds, animals and quadrupeds; old settlers have been disappearing, 
and new ones succeeding. There is scarcely a year in which some strange 
bird does not make its appearance ; and within a few years, the opossum of 
Virginia and Maryland has become a permanent resident. 



Elisha Sibley, a brother of Judge Sibley, was among the early 
settlers. He died in 1832. His surviving sons, are : — Samuel Sib- 
ley, William Sibley, Rev. Jeremiah Sibley, of Rush, Elisha vSibley, 
of Henrietta, Charles Sibley, of Groveland, and Martin and Joseph 

Sibley, of Michigan. Daughters became the wives of Hoit, 

of Rush, Calvin Norton, of Groveland, and Jehiel Markham. 

Elnathan Perry was a settler in Rush, as early as 1806. He was 
in service during the Revolution, and came to this region in Sulli- 
van's expedition. At some period during the Revolution he had 
made the acquaintance of La Fayette, and was recognized by him 
at Rochester, in his tour through this region in 1825. He died in 
1848 ; his widow still survives. His surviving sons are, John Perry, 
of Pennsylvania, and George Perry, of Rush; Mrs. Nathan Green 
and Mrs. Sturgess of Rush, are his daughters. 

Benjamin Campbell, who afterwards was a merchant and miller 
in Rochester, was an early merchant in Rush ; soon after the war 
of 1812. He is now a resident of Buffalo. John Webster and 
■ Miner, were early merchants. 

Dr. Alexander Kelsey was an early settled physician — as early 
as 1811. He was killed by the fall of a tree, fifteen or twenty years 
since ; was a good physician and useful citizen. Levi Kelsey, of 
Rush, late one of the members of Assembly from Monroe, is a son 
of his ; Mrs. Jeremiah Sibley, of Rush, and Mrs. Robert Martin, of 
Henrietta, are his daughters. 

Dr. Socrates Smith commenced practice soon after the war of 
1812, and is yet a practicing physician in the town. He married a 
daughter of the early Pioneer, Col. Wm. Markham. 

The first religious society organized in Rush, was of the Baptist 
order ; their early settled clergyman, Elder Goff. They erected a 
stone church about 1830. Elder Badger organized a christian so- 
ciety in early years. A Lutheran society was organized in early 
years; and l3uilt a church about 1830. 

The town of Rush was organized in 1818. The first town meet- 
ing was held at the house of Benajah Billings. The officers chosen 
were: — William Markham, supervisor, Peter Price, town clerk. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAIU'S PURCHASE. 539 

Other town officers : — Nat'ian Jeffords, Jacob Stull, John Mark- 
ham, Nathan Rose, Dudley Brainard, Clark Davis, George Liday, 
Peter Price, Adolphus Allen, Alfred Jones, John Ford, Benj. Camp- 
bell, Daniel Hulburt, Philip R. Rich, Alexander Kelsey, Oliver Case, 
Jeriel Smith, Nathan Gilpin, Henry Hart. 



HENRIETTA. 



James Sperry, Esq., who is generally familiar with the deductionf; 
of land titles in this region, is under the impression that T. 12, 
7th R., which now constitutes the town of Henrietta, was sold by 
Phelps and Gorham, previous to the general sale to the London As- 
sociates. In the general deed of conveyance there is no reservation 
of that township, except that of 900 acres to "Major E. Scott," 
and the author therefore concludes that the main portion of the 
township became a part of the Pulteney estate ; and this belief is 
strengthened by the fact that the township assumed the name of 
the daughter of Sir. Wm. Pulteney. Mr. Wadsworth sold the 
township during a tour in Europe, to William Six, of Hague, in 
Holland, and two associates, as the agent of the London Associ- 
ates, as is inferred. When he returned from Europe, the sale and 
settlement of the town, constituted one of his numerous agencies. 
He did not, as would seem, bring it into market until the late period 
of 1806. In that year, Stephen Rodgers surveyed it into farm lots. 

The name, " Major E. Scott," as entered in the office of Messrs. 
Phelps and Gorham, should have been, Major Isaac Scott. He had 
been either an agent or surveyor, for Phelps and Gorham, and to 
satisfy a claim, or to fulfill a promise of reward, they apportioned 
to him 900 acres, on the River, in the south west corner of the 
township. Although displeased with the location that had been as- 
signed him, he settled upon it soon after 1790, built a log house, 
cleared some ten or fifteen acres, remained in his solitary vv'ood's 
home for two or three years; but becoming discouraged, from sick- 
ness in his family, and other endurances incident to pioneer life, 
he gave up his enterprise, and the tract, by some exchange or com- 
promise, was again merged in the township. This was the untoward 
commencement of settlement in what is now the wealthy and flour- 
ishing town of Henrietta. It was a hard region to begin in, desirable 
as it would now seem ; the lands were most of them flat, wet and 
heavily timbered ; and the whole region had a forbidding aspect, as 
many will recollect, in the earliest 3"ears of settlement. 

The next adventurers, and in fact the pioneer settlers of the town, 
in reference to permanent settlement, were : — Jessee Pangburn, 
Lyman and Warren Hawley. They came in in 1806. Besides 
them, the purchasers in the township, in this year, were : — Charles 



540 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

Rice, William Thompson, Moses Goodale, Thomas Sparks, George 
Dickinson, Sela Reed, Asa Champlin, Gideon Griswold. In Octo- 
ber, 1807, there were settled, and about to settle in the east part ot 
the township, mostly on what was called the " Wadsworth Road : '■' 

— Joseph Came, Ira Hatch, Moses Wilder, Charles Rice, Jonathan 

Russell, Benjamin Bales, Parish, Barnes, Elias 

VV'ilder ; and soon after the period named, there were added to the 
settlement, the Baldwin family and Elisha Gage. 

But few sales and settlement took place in 1807 and '8 ; in 1809, 
'10, nearly all the most desirable lands in the township were contrac- 
ted. In the latter part of 1811, the sales were arrested in conse- 
quence of the discovery that the foreign proprietors had neglected 
to put their deeds upon record in the office of the Secretary of 
State, as they were required to do by a special statute. The set- 
tlers were advised by Mr. Wadsworth to use their means in making 
improvements, and in preparing to pay the purchase money when 
the difficulty in the way of title was removed. In the winter of 
J 81 3, '14, Mr. Wadsworth drew up a petition, which was generally 
signed by the settlers, praying the legislature to pass a law which in 
etiect would allow the proprietors to supply the omission of record 
within one year after the close of the then pending war. The 
j)rayer was granted, and in 1817 title was perfected. Soon after 
this, Mr. Wadsworth purchased of the foreign proprietors, all of the 
unsold lands in the township. 

On the perfection of title, a somewhat stringent policy was adop- 
ted by the jjroprietors, in reference to the outstanding expired con- 
tracts : — The contract price, 84 per acre, had been fixed at a time 
when Henrietta was looked upon as a quite out of the way place 

— a back settlement — " thirty miles from Canandaigua," and pros- 
pectively far removed from market facilities. In 1817 the whole 
face of things had changed, and was changing: — A village had 
sprung up at "the Falls," (Rochester,) milling, and other manufac- 
turing was in progress there, and large expectations had began to 
be formed in reference to the locality ; and what was still more im- 
portant, the speedy prosecution of the then projected Erie Canal, 
was confidently anticipated. New terms were imposed upon the 
settlers, or rather what amounted to new terms, for although they 
had had a long time to prepare for payment, they were mostly un- 
prepared ; — it was in years when new settlers could do little more 
than provide for present support of themselves and families. The 
conditions imposed were : — payment in full upon their contracts at 
contract price, within about four months, or payment in full for 
twenty acres or more at contract price, and a new contract for all 
that remained unpaid for, at an advance of 66 percent ; or paying 
nothing, and taking new contracts, the 66 per cent was to be ad- 
ded. The new conditions imposed were upon the principle that 
the proprietors and settlers, were entitled to an equal share of what 



PHELPS AND GOPvHAm's PURCHASE. 541 

would be regarded as a fair estimate, of the rise in value that had 
occurred since the original contracts were made ; a principle that 
governed large land proprietors in other similar instances, but which 
did not give due weight to the consideration, that it is the pioneers 
who first break into new tracts of land — commence improvements 
— who principally give the lands their enhanced value. But few 
of the settlers could meet the prompt payment demanded ; most of 
them were obliged to submit to the terms of renewed contracts; un- 
toward years followed, and the finale was the loss, with many, of 
their improvements ; while many were obliged to sell at a sacrifice, 
and renew in some western region, a pioneer life. Such has been 
the fate of many early settlers in other localities of the Genesee 
country, but in few instances perhaps, were there as large a propor- 
tion of changes of ocupants as in Henrietta. But lew, in fact, of 
the early settlers became permanent residents. 

The Sperry family, as will have been observed in another con- 
nection, settled in Henrietta in 1809, — or a part of it in that year, 
and a part in 1813; their location, what was termed "Methodist 
Hill." John Briminstool was the first settler on the River road, in 

1810. His father, Michael Briminstool, settled on the same road in 

1811. In that year, the only settlers on the liiver road from Enos 
Stone's, in Brighton, to south line of Henrietta, were the Brimin- 

stool's, John Cook, Russell, and a family in a log house near 

Mt. Hope; to whom were added before the close of the year, Lu- 
ther C. Adams, Charles Case, Isaac F. Nichols, Hugh and Frederick 
Sample, Simon Moore, Bethuel Hitchcock, and Charles Colegrove. 
In the same year, Andrew and John Bushman, and John Gould set- 
tled on cross road between River and State road. With a little 
assistance from Mr. Wadsworth the River road was opened through 
Henrietta to the Falls, in 1812 : — " but," says Deacon Briminstool, 
"we had but little business in that direction; we used sometimes to 
go down the river to fish, and sometimes to mill." In 1812 Joshua 
Briminstool and William Frazier, and soon after, Daniel Bly and 
Timothy Torrence settled upon the road. Of the early settlers in 
that part of the town, the surviving residents are, Michael Brimin- 
stool, Charles Case, and Andrew and John Bushman. Deacon Brim- 
instool is now in his 81st year. Jacob Briminstool, of Henrietta, is 
a surviving son ; a daughter of his became the wife of James Mc- 
Nall. 

Moses Wilder set out the first orchard in town, and built the first 
framed house ; Elias wilder the first barn. Elias Wilder moved to 
Conneaut, Ohio, soon after the war of 1812. His surviving sons, 
are, Amasa Wilder, of Richmond, Moses Wilder and Palmer B. 
Wilder, of Rochester ; daughters became the wives of Jonathan 
Rood, of Pittsford, Clark Marshall, of Waterbury, Vt., Orrin An- 
derson, of Orleans county, Jairus Bryant, of Pontiac, Michigan. 
Ira Hatch removed to Cattaragus county. Jonathan Russell is 



542 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASK 

still livinjT in Henrietta. Benjamin Bales removed in an early day 
to Ontario, Wayne county ; and also the Barns and Parish families. 

The first religious meetings held in town, were at the house of 
Moses Wilder, by circuit preachers: — Elder S. Puffer, Lacey, Fill- 
more. The first school on Wadsworlh road, was opened in 1809, 
in a log school house that stood near Stephens' corners. The school 
was kept by Sarah Leggett. The first military muster in town, 

was in 1810. Joseph Bancroft was captain; Hodge, who 

was killed at the battle of Queenston, was the Lieutenant. It was 
remembered that but few of the trainers had guns, and most of them 
were barefooted. A saw mill was erected in 1811 or '12, by Jon- 
athan Smith. 

In 1814, Elder Thomas Gorton settled on the river road. He 
had previously resided in Lima. A Baptist society had been or- 
ganized two years previous, and meetings had been kept up, Deacon 
Briminstool generally leading in them. After Elder Gorton settled 
in the neighborhood, a block meeting house was erected. The Elder 
emigrated to Michigan in 1840. He had thirteen children who be- 
came heads of families. The first school on River road, was opened 
in 1810, by Lucy Branch, now Mrs. Solomon Nichols, of Cattarau- 
gus county. A religious reading meeting was started in 181 1, by the 
elder Mr. Sperry, on the State road, which terminated in the forma- 
tion of a Congregational society, in 1815. A log meeting house 
was erected, but no stated preaching was maintained until the Rev, 
Wm. P. Kendrick was employed by the society in 1823. In 1833, 
the society was merged with another that had been organized in the 
east part of the town, and their present meeting house near the 
Academy was erected. 

In 1813 or '14, a Baptist society was organized in the east part 
of the town, over which Elder John Finney was settled for several 
years. In 1827 the east and west societies were merged, and a 
house erected at Henrietta corners. Over this united church Elder 
Miner was settled until 1838, when a division took place, and 
churches were erected at West Henrietta, and in the east part of 
the town. 

To the enterprise, and just appreciation of the cause of education, 
on the part of a few citizens of the town of Henrietta, the inhabitants 
of all this region were indebted for an early flourishiug literary insti- 
tution. Monroe Academy was projected as early as 1825. Before 
the close of 1826 a sufficient amount of subscriptions were obtained 
to warrant the erection of a building. The contract went into the 
hands of Benjamin Baldwin, a young merchant of the town ; the 
Academy building was completed and the whole enterprise was 
fairly under way under the auspices of David Crane as Principal, 
in the winter of '28 '9. Among its most active projectors and pat- 
rons, were : — Luther C. Chamberlin, Richard Wilkins. Richard 
and Charles Daniels, Elisha Gage, Bedjamin Baldwin, Abijah Gould, 



PHELPS AND GORHAM's PUECHASE. 543 

Ozias Church, (father of the present Lieut. Governor,) of Henrietta, 
and Giles Bolton, of Rochester. Its success exceeded the most san- 
guine anticipations ; its students soon numbering as many as 350. 
It continued to be a flourishing institution in all the early years of its 
existence, and supplied a local deficiency that had existed in the 
means of education ; and only declined when similar institutions 
were rapidly multiplied in other locahties. 

Early settlers of Henrietta, other tiian those named : — Ebenezer 
Gooding, a son of the early pioneer in Bristol, Warren Burr, Ros- 
well Wickwire, Elijah Little, Stephen Legget, Alfred Jones, Noble 
Dayton, Charles Balwin, Scudder. 

The Pioneer settlement of Henrietta, owing to its secluded posi 
lion, its heavy timber, and the prevalence generally of level lands 
and wet soil, to which was added years of questionable title ; was 
slow and discouraging. As with all the rest of this region — but 
especially with that and several other localities — the "good time" 
came with the Erie canal ; or when that great promoter and ditfuser 
of prosperity had become a settled measure. The town is now 
justly ranked among the best agricultural towns of Western New 
York; and no where, perhaps, do farms bear a higher average value. 



CHAPTER II 



MORRIS' RESERVE. 



The territory thus designated is bounded on the east oy Phelps 
and Gorham's purchase ; north by Lake Ontario ; west by the 
Transit, or Holland Company's eastern line; south by the Penn- 
sylvania line; — containing in all, not far from 500,000 acres. It 
was a reservation made by Mr. Morris, in his sale to the Holland 
Company, and afterwards sold in large tracts to others — principally 
to preferred creditors. The northern portion of it, the settlement 
of which will only be included in this connection, was divided into 
two tracts : — the " Triangle," and the " Connecticut," or " 100,000 
acre Tract." 



THE TRIAXGLE. 



This is a tract, which as will be observed by reference to maps, 
has its base upon Lake Ontario, and terminates in a sharp point, a 



544 PHELPS AOT) GOEHAm's PUECnASE. 

little south of Le Roy village. The peculiar shape had its origin 
in the north easterly direction it was necessary to give the west 
line of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, in order to have it corres- 
pond with the course of the Genesee River, and be an average dis- 
'' tance of twelve miles therefrom.* The tract contains 87,000 acres ; 
embraces the towns of Clarkson, Sweeden, and part of Bergen and 
Le Roy. Mr. Morris sold it to Le Roy, Bayard and M'Evers, who 
were tlien merchants of the city of New York. It was not sur- 
veyed until 1801. In the spring of that year, Mr. EUicott, as agent 
for the proprietors, employed Richard M. Stoddard who then resi- 
ded in Canandaigua, and had been in the employ of the Holland 
Company, to survey the tract ; and after the survey he became the 
local agent for its sale and settlement. 

Mr. Stoddard had married the sister of Dudley Saltonstall, of 
Canandaigua, who took an interest with him in the purchase of 500 
acres of the tract, which constitutes the site of Le Roy village. 
Mr. Saltonstall soon sold his interest to Ezra Piatt, who was also a 
resident of Canandaigua, and one of the early Judges of Ontario. 
Stoddard and Piatt, became the Pioneers of Le Roy, and all of the 
Triangle. Before the close of 1801 they had built a log house on 
the banks of Allan's creek, opened a land office, and were erecting 
mills at what was then called " Buttermilk Falls." Mr. Stoddard 
was sheritf of Genesee county soon after its organization ; in all 
early years a prominent and useful citizen. His widow still sur- 
vives, a resident with her son, Thomas B. Stoddard, Esq, near Irving, 
Chautauque county. The only daughter was the first wife of the 
Hon. John B. Skinner, of Wyoming. Mr. Stoddard died in 1810. 
Ezra Piatt, who was at one period First Judge of Genesee, died in 
1811 ; Elijah and George Piatt of Le Roy, and Ezra Piatt, of Ann 
Arbor, are his sons ; Mrs. Stephen M. Wolcott, of Le Roy, is a 
daughter of Judge Piatt. 

This pioneer commencement has reference to the immediate vil- 
lage of Le Roy. Near the village, on the main road, east, it will 
have been observed, Capt. Ganson had succeeded Charles Wilbur 
in a public house in 1798. In reference to the whole town Mr. Wil- 
bur was the pioneer. He was the first justice of the peace west of 
Caledonia. Removing from Le Roy, he located at the Cold Springs, 
near Lockport, becoming the first settler in all that part of Niagara 
county. His wife was a daughter of Deacon Handy, of West 
Bloomfield ; a daughter, the first born in Le Roy, is Mrs. Standart, 
of Cleavland. Jessee and Philip Beach, Chapman Hawley, Gil- 

* The suiTey of the Mill Tract was first made by Col. Hugh Max-well. He ran 
tAVclve miles west from the liver, and then due north to Lake "Ontario. This being 
objected to by the Indians, the late Jnd<;e Porter ran a new line, which was as near 
an average of twelve miles distant from the River as a straight line would allow. In 
after surveys, west of this line, the tract which Porter's survey struck out fi'om the 
Maxwell suiTey, became what has been termed the Triangle. 



PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 545 

bert Hall, Douglass, Samuel Davis, and Hinds Chamberlin, 

were soon added to the new settlement east of the present village 
site. The Beaches removed to Niagara county where many of 
their descendants now reside. Deacon Hinds Chamberlin, who is 
named in another connection, came a young man to Scottsville, as 
early as 1795. He was elected a constable in 1798, for the whole 
region west of the River ; first serving precepts issued by a magis- 
trate at Avon ; and afterwards those issued by Esq. Fish. As a 
road commissioner he laid out the first road west of theRiver, Irom 
Scottsville to Hall's corners. He married previous to 1800, the 
widow of Malcolm MXaren, of Caledonia. He died in 1849, aged 
84 years. Some reminiscences of his, will be found in Holland 
Purchase, p. 321 ; to a son of his, Mr. S. Chamberlin, of Le Roy, 
the author has been indebted for some farther reminiscences obtain- 
ed from the early pioneer, previous to his death.* Mr. Davis be- 
came an early tavern keeper, a mile east of Le Roy. He was from 
Bloomfield ; lived in early life with General Hall ; married a daugh- 
ter of Isaac Scott, the pioneer of Scottsville. He was murdered in 
his own house, in 1827 or '8, by James Gray, who was excuted at 
Batavia. The father of Gray, who was implicated in the murder, 
was sentenced to the States prison, pardoned by the Governor, and 
died in Le Roy a few years since. The Grays were intoxicated; 
the immediate provocation was the refusal of Mr. Davis to give up 
a child of James Gray that was indented to him. 

Gen. Daniel Davis was a settler as early as 1801, and also became 
an early tavern keeper. He was an early military officer, succeed- 
ing Joseph Hewitt in the command of a company of militia; had 
attained the rank of Brig. General on the occurrence of the war of 
1812; was killed at the sortie of Fort Erie. 

Asa Buell was a settler soon after 1800 ; had held a commission 
in the Revolution ; was a member of the Legislature of Conn. ; 
died in 1825 or '6 ; a son was killed with Gen. Davis at the sortie of 
Fort Erie ; a surviving son occupies the homested. 

The following list embraces the names of all who purchased land 
upon the Triangle, from commencement of sales until the close of 
1809. Generalfy it is the names of the early Pioneers, though in 
some instances, it is presumed, the purchasers, or holders of contracts 
never became residents. And it is also to be considered that many 



N-QTE. — In reminiscences ef Le Roy, reference mil be had to tlie whole town, with- 
out any distinction as to that portion of it which is on the Triangle. 

* Mr Chamberlin has foi-warded to the author the first deed sjiven for a farm lot, 
west of Caladonia. John Johnstone, as the agent of William Hornby, conveys 100 
acres of land in Le Roy, to Joseph Hewitt. The blank was pruited by "L. Caiy, 
Canandaio-ua." Mr. Hewett paid for his farm thus early with the proceeds of a con- 
tract with'^Mr. Ellicott, for building the first bridge over Allan's creek, at Le Roy. He 
removed to Lewiston, Niagara county, in early years, where he became a successiuL 
fai-mer, and where his descendants now reside. 



546 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHASl's PURCHASE. 



transfers of contracts were made, in which cases the names of 
the actual settlers may not appear : — 



Township 1. 
Dudlev Saltonstall, 
R. M. Stoddard, 



Township 1. 

Elias Underwood, 
E. Bacon, 
"William GUmore, 



Township 1. 
Isaac Marsh, 

Township 4. 
Moody Freeman.] 



Township 1. 
Philemon Nettleton, 
James Bates, 
John Fordham. 

Township 2. 
Benj. Fox, 



Township 1. 

Gaines Brown, 
Jessee Foskett, 
Cephas Fordham,' 
Martin Kelsey, 
James Bates, 
Jessee Griswold, 
Daniel Le BaiTon, 
Svlvaniis Fail-field, 
JoseiiU Mapes, 
Ella Smith. 

Township 2. 
Eichard Abbey, 
Abraham Davis, 
Alexander White, 



Township 1. 
gimon Pierson, 
Joseph Pierson, 
Oliver Bates. 

Township 2. 
Samuel Gleason. 
William Peters, 
Jonathan Thompson, 
Willard Leach, 
George Letson, 
Joseph Eldridge, 
Samuel Farley, 
David Johnson, 



1801. 

Township L 
David Fau-cliild, 
Thaddeus Keys, 

1802. 

Township 1. 
Lemuel F. Prindell, 
Nathan HaiTey, 
Jeremiah Hascall, 

1803. 

'Township 5. 
Jolm Barns, 
Amos W. Sweet, 
John Cobb. 

1804. 

Township 2. 
David Scott. 
John Landon, 
Benajah Worden. 

Township 4. 
James Sayres, 

1805. 

Township 2. 
James Austin, 
David Potter, 
Solomon Leach, 
Cotton Leach, 
Gideon EUiott, 
Isaac Leach, 
Levi Leach, 
Daniel Kelsey, 
David Frankun, 
Juhn Pierson. 

Township 3. 
Isaiah White, 
Jonathan Freeman, 
Thomas White. 

1806. 

Township 2. 
Roger Kelsey, 
James Gano. 

Township 3. 
Jas. D. Mowlat, 
Archibald M 'Knight^ 
Joseph Hopkins, 
Levi Gilbert, 
Gideon On-, 
John Ellis, 

Township 4. 
Wm. Spatibrd, 
Samuel Algur, 



Township L 
Ebenezer Green, 
Aai'on Scribuer. 



Township 1. 
Abraham Russell, 
Horace Shepherd, 
Joshua Woodward. 



Township 2. 
Jacob Fuller. 



Township 4. 

Elijah Blodgett. 

Township 5. 
James M'Casson. 



Township 4. 
John Fowle, 
Wm. Davis, 
Simeon Daggett, 
David Stanton, 
Noah Owen, 
Benj. Boyd, 
Isaac Farwell, 
John Farwell. 

Township 5. 
Abigal Sayer, 
John Chapman, 



Township 4. 
Ai-etas Haskell, 
Julius Curtiss, 
Samuel ChisweU, 
Ebenezer Towle, 
Sylvester Eldiidge, 
Koah Owen, 
Olney F. Rice, 
Carr Draper. 

Township 5. 
Perry G.Nichols. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 



547 



Township 1. 
Oliver Bates, 
James Bates, 
Lockwood G. Hoyt, 
Sylvanns Franklin, 
Piiilo Pierson. 

TowxsHir 2. 
Abraham Davis, 
Levi Russell Jr., 
Philip Conklin, 
Jolm A. Lackor, 
Aaron H. Kelsey, 
Eber Griswold, 
Wheaton Southworth, 
Henry D. GifFord, 
Jeremiah Hart, 
Abner Lovejuy, 
D. R. Peters, 
Benj. Woodward, 
Wm. Woodward, 



T0W?fSHIP 1. 

John Richards, 
Leonard Parmelee, 
Wm. Wolcott, 
Daniel Waite. 
Nathaniel King. 
Township 2. 
Benj. "Wright, 
Levi Ward, Sen. 
John Ward, 
Levi Ward, Jr., 
Betsey Whipple. 
Wm, Munger, 
John Wright, 
Joseph Throop, 
Polly Gitford, 
Peleg Thomas, 
Abijah Capron, 
Simeon Gray, 
Wm. H. Muuger, 

TowsspiP 3. 
Samuel Lincoln, 
Johnson Bedell, 
Amos Parks, 
Edwai-d Parks, 



Township 2. 
Joshua Green, 
Daniel Guthi-ie, 
Azariah Haywood, 
George Orman, 
Jacob Orman. 

Township 3. 
Matliias Pease, 
Ebenezer Champney, 
Gale Purman, 



1807. 

Township 2. 
James Landon, 
Sylvanus Durlam, 
Aug. Buell, 
John Gifford, 
Cyi-us Gifford, 
Dyi-e Thomas, 
Joseph Thi-oop, 
Orange Throop, 
David Johnson, 
A. Bissell. 

Township 3. 
John Ellis, 
John Reed, 
Samuel Bishop, 
Stephen Johnson, 
Joseph Hopkins, 
Wm. Dunsha, 
Samuel Lincoln, 
Luke Chase, 

1808. 

Township 3. 
Walter Palmer, 
Lincoln Palmer, 
Cjrrus Hatch, 
Rufus Harman, 
John A. Tone, 
Reuben Stickney, 
Joseph Eldridge, 
Stephen Lyman, 
Joshua Green, 
Cyrus Galloway, 
Wm. M. Bentley, 
Charles Warren, ^ 
Wm. B. Worden, 
Aaron Hdl, 
Moses J. Hill, 
Judah Church, 
Nathaniel Pool, 
Daniel 0. Stone, 
David Lovett, 
Jacob Bartlett, 
Benj. Knight, 
Nathaniel Pool. 
Micajah Moon, 
Reuben Downs, 

1809. 

Township 3. 
Amos Fiiuk, 
Alanson Thomas, 
Isaac Howard, 
Zadock Hurd, 
Joseph Langdon, 
Levi Merrdls, 
Joshua Green, 
John Marshall, 
Stephen Clark, 



Township 3. 
Epluaim Carter, 
Bethuel Barron, 
Amos Pai'ks, 
Uriah L. James, 
Wm. James, 
W. Stewart, 
Elisha. Stewart, 
Benj. Sheldon, 
Elisha Ewer. 

Township 4. 
Patrick Fowler, 
Joseph Grover, 
WUbur Sweet, 
Levi Leach, 
Eli Glass, 
Wm. Dickinson, 
Anthony Case, 
S. Bigelow. 



Township 3. 
Wm. Bentley, 
Nicholas liake, 
Oramel Butler, 
Simeon Gray, 
Joseph Luce. 

Township 4. 
Eldridge Farwell, 
John Mallory, 
Isaac Lincoln, 
Eli Mead, 
Wilbm- Sweet, 
L. W. UdaU, 
Robert Clark, 
Robert Hoy, 
Robert Brown, 
Jas. M. Brown, 
Oliver Hamlin, 
Danforth Howe, 
Macy Browc 
Eli Runded, 
Jonathan Mead, 
Elisha Lake. 



Township 3. 
Reuben Stickney. Jiv 
Thos. W. Taylor, 
Reuben Downs, 
• Township 4. 
Isaac Holmes, 
James Hoy, 
Joshua H. Brown, 
Walter Billings, 
Orange Risden. 



548 PHELPS AOT) goeham's pukchase. 

The successoi' of R. M. Stoddard in the land agency, was Gra- 
ham Newell, who was succeeded by Egbert Benson. Jr. The suc- 
cessor of the last named, was Jacob Le Roy, a son of one of the 
proprietors. In 1839, Mr. Le Roy returned to New York, and 
Joshua Lothrop who had been his clerk, succeeded him in the 
agency, which position he still retains ; though the affairs of the 
agency are pretty much closed ; the whole tract being sold, deeded, 
and paid for, with the exception of a small amount which remains 
in the form of loans. 

The reader by a cursory examination of the list of early settlers, will 
observe that for the first few years, settlement of the Triangle beyond 
the immediate neighborhood of Le Roy, had a slow progress. In 
1803, there were but two lots sold in Bergen ; in 1804, but seven ; 
in 1805, but twenty-one. In 1805, but three in Sweden ; in 1806. 
but nine ; in 1807, but twenty-six. In 1803, but one in Clarkson , 
in 1804, but three; in 1805, but twelve. And it is not to be pre- 
sumed that all who purchased became actual settlers ; in fact, many 
did not. 

Jeremiah Hascall removed from Canandaigua, where he had set- 
tled in 1800, to Le Roy, with his family, in 1805 ; having pur- 
chased a part of the present Murphy farm in 1802. He was a 
Justice of the Peace when his jurisdiction embraced all the territo- 
ry west of Genesee river. He died in 1835, aged 90 years ; his 
wife in 1834, aged 84 years. They had thirteen children, twelve 
of whom arrived at adult age. The surviving sons are : — David, 
Amasa, and Augustus P. Hascall, of Le Roy, the last named being 
the member of Congress elect, from the county of Genesee ; John 
Hascall, of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Daughters : — Mrs. Wiard, of 
Le Roy; Mrs. Harvey, of Pike; Mrs. Austin, of Le Roy; Mrs 
Knowlton, of Ohio. 

James Austin was an officer of the Revolutionary army ; settled 
first in Bristol; in Le Roy soon after 1800. He died in Bergen. 
His widow still survives, over 90 years of age. Mrs. Bissell and 
Mrs. Lee; of Bergen, Mrs. Allen, of Mendon, were his daughters. 

Nathan Harvey settled in Le Roy in 1802. He and Jeremiah 
Hascall were both engaged in opening what is now called the Brock- 
port road. It was done at the expense of the proprietors of the Trian- 
gle. The road makers took camp equippage, and encamped as 
they progressed. Mr. Harvey died in 1839. Harmon Harvey, of 
Le Roy, a:id Nathaniel Harvey, of Allegany, are his sons ; Mrs. 
Hiram Butler, of Le Roy, is a daughter. 

Richard Waite was the Pioneer black^nith ; was an early officer 
of the militia. He still survives, a resident of Alexander. He is 
the father of the Rev. Richard L. Waite, of Caryville ; Daniel D. 
Waite, editor of the Advocate, Batavia; JElisha Waite, of Adrian, 
Michigan ; Mrs. Newton, of Alexander, is a daughter. 

Stephen Stilwell was the Pioneer shoemaker ; coming in with a 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 549 

large family in the fall of the year, for the want of a better tene- 
ment, he was obliged to cover and make a small addition to a frame 
raised by Major Waite for shoeing oxen ; in which he wintered, 
and began the shoeing of the new settlers. He was not only a. 
shoemaker, but a preacher, and a famous coon hunter. One of a 
family of emigrants dying at Capt. Gansons, he preached the fu- 
neral sermon in the bar-room. This was the first death and burial 
in Le Roy. 

The Parmalee family were early settlers. Col. Parmalee, of 
Wilson, Niagara county, is one of the survivors. Martin Kelsey, 
Timothy Hatch, Washington Weld, Isaac Marsh, Hugh Murphy, 
David Scott, Martin O. Coe, were in Le Roy previous to, and be- 
fore the close ot the war of 1812. Mr. Kelsey survives at the age 
of 70 years ; Mrs. Elmore, of Le Roy, is his daughter. Mr. Hatch 
died in 1844; his widow still survives ; M. P. Hatch, of Oswego, 
is a son of his ; Mrs. Martin O. Coe, of Le Roy, a daughter. ^Ir. 
Weld died in 1849 ; Willard Weld, residing near Lockport, is a son 
of his ; the widow still survives. Mr. Marsh died many years 
since ; some of the family are residing in Bushville, near Batavia. 
Mr. Murphy settled first in Cambria, Niagara county; in 1810, 
changed his residence to Le Roy, purchasing the tract which now 
constitutes the fine farm occupied by his sons and dauahters, border- 
ing upon the eastern boundaries of the village. He died in 182G. 
David Scott was an officer of the regular army in 1812 ; now re- 
sides in Michigan. Mr. Coe still survives : George, Joseph and 
Charles Coe, of Le Roy, and William Coe, of Bostoli, are his sons. 
Dr. Ella Smith was the first settled physician in Le Roy. Dr. 
William Sheldon settled there in 1811, and has continued practice 
up to this period. William H. Sheldon, of Le Roy. who married 
a daughter of one of the early pioneers at Allen's Hill, Ontario 
county ; Joseph Garlinghouse ; Lucius Sheldon, of Le Roy ; G. T. 
Sheldon, of Detroit, and Horatio Sheldon, of Wisconsin, are his sons. 

Dudley Saltonstall was the first practicing lawyer in Le Roy. 
Heman J. Redfield commenced practice there soon after the war of 
1812 ; his students, while at Le Roy, were : — Seth M. Gates, of 
Warsaw, Lucas Beecher of Sandusky, Willis Buell of Zanesville. 
and Albert Smith of Milwaukee. John B. and Samuel Skinner, 
and John and Augustus Hascall, succeeded the early lawyers in 
practice there. 

In 1810, the first building was erected exclusively for merchan- 
dizing. It was first occupied by George A. Tifiany, a son of one 

of the early printers at Canan'daigua, and by Johnson and 

Joseph Annin, in succession. Thaddeus Joy, so long and widelv 
known, first as a teamster in the days of " big wagons," on the Al- 
bany and Buffalo road, then as a mici chant, and in later years, in 
connection with transportation on the Erie Canal, was merchan- 
dizing in Le Roy as early as 1810. He went to Buffalo in 1823 : 



550 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

now resides in the city of New York. Judge Samuel De Veaux, 
of Niagara Falls, now one of the most wealthy and public spirited 
citizens of all that region, had been attached to the commissary 
department at Fort Niagara, and subsequently had commenced 
merchandizing there. The winter after the breaking out of the 
war, he removed to Le Roy, and was engaged in merchan- 
dizing there until after the close of the war. In some reminiscen- 
ces of the war of 1812, which he has furnished the author, and 
which will form an interesting chapter in a volume now partly pre- 
pared for the press — " Sketches of the War of 1812 upon the Nia- 
gara Frontier " — he pays a well merited tribute to the patriotism of 
the citizens of Le Roy, in that trying crisis ; and especially names 
the circumstance of the furnishing of graUiitous supplies from that 
village and neighborhood, at a period of want and destitution upon 
the Frontier ; and it but accords with the author's recollection of 
the patriotism of the citizens of that locality during the war. 

A Presbyterian church was organized in Le Roy in 1812. The 
Rev. Mr. Tuller was the first to officiate ; the Rev. Calvin C. Colton, 
author of the " Life of Henry Clay," was the first settled clergy- 
man. The society erected a church in 1825. Previous to the or- 
ganization of this society, religious meetings had been held in a barn 
near the present residence of Judge Brewster ; and subsequently, 
in a school house opposite the residence of Col. Shedd. The Bap- 
tists erected a church in 1822. A Methodist society was formed in 
1823, by Elder A. Seager. An Episcopal church was erected in 
1826. 

The Le Roy Female Seminary was founded in 1836. An asso- 
ciation, the members of which were, A. P. Hascall, Samuel Corn- 
stock, Lee Comstock, Ezra Rathbun, S. M. Gates, Albert Brewster, 
Jonathan P. Darling, Alonzo S. Upham, Richard Hollister, William 
S. Bradley, and Enos Bachelor, purchased a private residence for 
the purpose of converting it into a literary institution. The Misses 
Inghams, having previously located themsslves in the village of At- 
tica, as an inducement for them to remove to Le Roy, the associa- 
tion took their property in Attica in exchange for the buikling and 
lot in Le Roy. The school was immediately started under their 
auspices, was flourishing, and has become, by their unremitting en- 
terprise and perseverance, one of the best Female Seminaries in 
the State. Improving the grounds, and from time to time enlarging 
the edifice, it now has the imposing appearance of some of the 
eastern colleges. Few, if any, female institutions in the State have 
turned out more well educated graduates : many of whom are 
either at the head of, or teachers in seminaries in different portions 
of the United States; especially in the western !?tates. One of 
the founders of the institution has become the wife of Mr. Phineas 
Stanton, a son of one of the prominent pioneers of the Holland 
Purchase, the late Colonel Stanton, of Middlebury. 



551 

The author is indebted to the venerable Simon Pierson, a surviv- 
'ing pioneer of the northern portion of the town of Le Roy — the 
neighborhood of Fort Hill — for many early reminiscences of that 
locality, especially in reference to the interesting ancient remains 
which has given to the spot considerable celebrity. - The remains 
found at Fort Hill, were embraced in a previous work of the au- 
thors, and the public have been made familiar with the subject in 
other forms. Mr. Pierson's account of early settlement, the author 
cheerfully and thankfully makes available. 

Deacon Hinds Chamberlin was a pioneer in this, as he had 
been in other localities. He broke into what was called the north- 
ern woods, built a cabin, and made an opening in the forest, in the 
neighborhood of Fort Hill, in 1801. In 1802, Alexander M'Pherson 
became his neighbor; John, James, Allen, and Alexander M'Pher- 
son, jr., are his sons. In 1804, Francis Le Barron; descendants 
principally reside in Michigan. In 1804, Gideon Fordham. Also, 
in 1804, Philemon Nettleton; descendants principally reside in 
Michigan. In 1805, these five first settlers rolled up some huge 
bassv/ood logs, at the foot of Fort Hill, near the brook, and made 
one of the rudest specimens of a backwoods school house. The 
first teacher was Addrew M'Nabb, a Scotchman ; the second, 
Samuel Crocker ; the third. Major Nathan Wilson ; the last of whom 
died in 1813 of the prevailing epidemic; his son, Nathan Wilson, 
jr., died from a wound received in battle in the war of 1812 ; 
Stephen S. and Jared E. Wilson, of Le Roy, are surviving sons. 
Alexander M'Pherson died in 1833, aged 80 years ; Francis Le Bar- 
ron in 1832, aged 61 years; Philemon Nettleton in 18i8, aged 72 
years; Gideon Fordham in 1821, aged 77 years. 

David Le Barron, Samuel Smith, Ebenezer Parmalee, Ishi 
Franklin, Abner Hull, Russell Pierson, Rev. Josiah Pierson, Philo 
Pierson, John Pierson, Simon Pierson, Sylvanus Franklin, Linus 
Pierson, were all settled in the neighborhood before the close of 
1810. The first named died in 1829, aged 54 years ; two sons are 
supposed to be with the Mormons at Salt Lake. The second died 
in 1829, aged 77 years ; descendants reside in Michigan. The 
third died in 1847, aged 73 years; David W., Harlow and William 
Parmalee are his sons. The fourth died in 1843, aged 62 years ; 
Warren, Watson, Henry!, William and David Franklin, are his sons. 
The sixth died in 1815, aged 70 years ; Luther and Adolphus Pier- 
son, of Bergen, Edwin Pierson, of Chili, Willis Pierson, of Ogden, 
and John Pierson, of Careyville, are his sons. The seventh died 
in Bergen in 1846; Hamilton W. and Nelson Pierson, of Bergen, 
Carloss Pierson, of Ohio, and Josiah Pierson, of Mount Morris, are 
his sons. The eighth died in 1820; William Pierson, a lawyer in 
Kentucky, and David B. Pierson, a merchant in Cincinnati, are his 
sons. The tenth died of the prevailing epidemic in 1813, connect- 
ed upon the frontier, aged 30 years ; an only son was drowned from 



552 PHELPS AND GOEHAIVIS' PUECHASE. 

on board the S. B. Washington, on Lake Erie, in 1838 ; Mrs. 
FKnt, of Batavia, is a daughter. The eleventh still survives, re- 
siding near Churchville. 

David Frankin, a brother of Sylvanus Franklin, had come in 
previous to 1809. In March of that year, the two brothers, with 
their wives and two children, were descending the primitive road 
at Fort Hill, which ran along upon one side of a deep ravine, in a 
sleigh drawn by spirited horses. The horses became unmanage- 
able, -set off at full speed, arid turning an angle of the road, the 
sleigh upset, throwing the whole party a considerable distance, with 
great violence ; David Franklin striking a stump, and receiving an 
injury that he did not long survive. •' This sorrowful accident," 
says Mr. Pierson, " threw a shade of gloom over our backwoods 
settlement ; for it seemed as if we could hardly do without our 
neighbor Franklin, who was forward in every good word and work." 
This, and other accidents that had happened there, induced a change 
in the location of the road. 

Touching the advent of our friend Mr. Pierson, he must be al- 
jowed to tell his story in his own humorous way. 



REMINISCElfCES OF SIMON" PIERSON. 



In October, 1806, in company with my brother, the late Rev. Josiah 
Pierson, of Bergen, and our families, I started from Kiliingwortb, Conn., 
with a wagon load of household goods, bound for the Genesee countrv, 
which we then understood as embracing all west of VVhitestown. I was 
then 28 years old, my brother 26. From Albany to VVhitestown, we met 
a vast number of teams loaded with wheat for the Albany market. On 
the road, we met De Witt Clinton returning from a western tour. At 
Whitestown, there were three log-houses, one of them a tavern, kept by 
Mr. Baggs. We then supposed we had arrived at the western verge of 
civilization, and that we were now coming to a region — 

" Where notliing dwelt but beasts of prey, 
Or meu as wild aud fierce as they." 

But which has proved to be a region where — 

" The worthy, needy, poor repair, 

And build them towns and cities there." 

***** jif 

■' They sow their seed, and trees they plant, 
TVHiose yearly fruit supplies their want ; 
Tlieir race graws up in fruitful stock, 
Their wealth increases with their ilock." 

From Whitestown we passed on, I should think, about three miles, where 
there was a log school house, and where they were holding a meeting — 
for it was Sunday — and they were singing the good old ftimiliar tune — 
New Jerusalem: — 

" From the third heavens where God resides," &c. 



PHELPS AND G0EHA3l's PUECHASE. 553 

We travelled on the Sabbath, because we were told that travellers had no 
borne but the tavern ; and that they were thronged on that day with those 
whose society would not contribute to a Sabbath day's rest ; loafers they 
would be called now that we have got such a word. From Whitestown 
to Canandaigua, 112 miles, was a new turnpike, much of the way through 
the woods and very muddy. Once in ten miles was a toll gate where we 
had to pay 25 cents for poaching ten miles of road. On arriving at the 
outlet of Canandaigna Lake, we found a small grist-mill, said to have been 
built by one of our townsmen, Mr. Harris ; who, it was said, had brought 
a half bushel of wheat on his back from Whitestown, for seed. I <saw 
the old man on his return from the Genesee country. His friends in Con- 
necticut had conjectured that the Indians would use him up, and that he 
would never reach home again. 

At Genesee river, we had no way of crossing, but in a wretched scow . 
On the west side of the river, we saw many Indian huts, from the corners 
of which was suspended, by braided husks, large quantities of corn. An 
old Indian told us we were at " Canawaugus." I began to think of toma- 
hawks and scalping knives. About four miles west of the river, we came 
to a log tavern kept by Major Smith. Here we found a small man with a 
very large wife. Says Major Smith to the small man : — " Is that woman 
your wife?" "Yes, sir," was the reply. Says the Major: — " How did 
you get across the river ?-^I should suppose that your wife would have 
sunk that old scow." " 0," said the little man, "I went twice for her." 

Arriving at " Ganson's settlement," now Le Roy, we found friends who 
advised us not to purchase land " down in the north woods," for, said they, 
" it will always be sickly there ; and the region will never be settled. " 
But having a brother and brother-in-law at Fort Hill, who had preceded 
us a few months, we resolved upon going there. Fort Hill was then cov- 
ered with a dense forest of heavy timber from its base to its summit. Its 
appearance was that of gloom and solitude, except when enlivened by the 
music of the water rushing over the falls at Allan's * Creek. 



Mr. Pierson is now in his 73d year ; his surviving sons are, Philo 
L. Pierson, of Le Roy, and M. D. Pierson, of Dansville. 

The prominent ancient remains in Le Roy, other than those at 
Fort Hill and its immediate vicinity, were upon a bluff, near Allan's 
creek, a short distance below the village. It was a mound, or 
tumuli in size, according to Mr. Pierson's recollection, who saw it 
in an early day, about that of an ordinary coal pit ; others who saw 
it in an early day, think it was about 15 feet in height, with a base 

* Mr. Pierson, in consideration of the unamiable character of the person from whom 
this beautiful stream is named, would change it to Mrs. Jemison's Indian name — 
" Ginisaga." Other citizens of Le Roy, would call it '' Oatka," the Indian name for 
a stream coming out from between high banks. The latter name would only be ap- 
plicable to the peculiar topogi-aphy of Le Roy and its neighborhood. Desirable as 
some change of the name of the stream may be regarded, it would require the co- 
operation of those generally who reside upon its banks, in its whole extent ; a con- 
ventional decision that the author has not ventured to anticipate. 
35 



554 PHELPS AJSTD GOEHAM'S PUECHASE. 

of 30 feet.^ Trees were growing upon it 18 inches in diameter. 
The foxes in burrowing into it had brought out human bones, which 
led to an assembling of the early settlers, on a given day, in consid- 
erable numbers, who made several excavations in the" tumuli, and 
disenterred a large quantity of human skeletons. They were the 
bones of all ages and both sexes ; some of them judged to be consid- 
erable larger than^ the bones of the largest of our own race. 
DCP See Appendix to supplement, No. 2. 

In a considerable area of the locality ; especially in the immediate 
neighborhood of Fort Hill, many relics of ancient occupancy have 
been discovered ; and occasionally evidences of French occupancy. 
During the Revolution, those who fled from the Mohawk to Canada, 
and made frequent journies backwards and forwards upon the old 
Niagara trail, had favorite camping grounds upon the creek in the 
immediate vicinity of Le Roy village. They had left considerable 
plats of tame grass, which were very convenient for travellers when 
settlement was tending in that direction ; attracting the deer from 
the surrounding forest, they were often killed in those little openings. 
Allan's creek has a fall of over sixty feet, within the corporate 
limits of Le Roy village : thus creating a durable and valuable 
water power, in the midst of a rich agricultural region, where it is 
much required. It takes its rise from springs in Wyoming county ; 
passes through Warsaw, Middlebury, Covington, Bethany, a cor- 
ner of Stafibrd, Le Roy, and Wheatland, discharging into the Gen- 
esee river at Scottsvifle. It furnishes mill power at Gainesville, 
Warsaw, Pavillion, Bailey's- mills, Roanoke, Northrup's Factory, 
Tomlinson's mills, Le Roy ; a mile below Le Roy, Albright's, (now 
Finch's) mills, Garbuttville, and Scottsville. 

Le Roy having been erected from Caledonia in l812, when the 
war spirit was rife, it was named Bellona ; afterwards, and in better 
taste, it assumed the name of one of the original proprietors of the 
Triangle. William Sheldon was the first supervisor, Thomas Tufts 
town clerk. Other town officers: — David Le Barron, Philo 
Pierson, Benjamin Ganson, Ella Smith, John Ganson, Asa Buel, 
Zalmon Turrell, David Bidlecum, Harvey Prindle, Richard Waite, 
Levi Farnum, H. Graham Newell, George Terry, Amasa Hascall, 
Jeremiah Hascall. At first State election, in 1813, for Governor, 
Daniel D. Tompkins had 123 votes, Stephen Van Rensselaer, 24.' 



It will be observed by the preceding list of names, and periods, of 
settlement, that the settlement of what is now Bergen had but com- 
menced along in 1804, '5 and '6. The early road was the north 
and south road already mentioned. The road from where Roch- 
ester now is to Batavia, was not opened through Bergen until 1810. 
The town was organized in 181 8. Those whose names follow, were 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 



555 



early pioneers, other 
the earliest : — 

Levi Bissell, 
Alexander Bissel, 
Patrick Fswler, 
Timotliv Hill, 
Joel Wright, 
Stephen Everts, 
David G. Everts, 
Amos Hewett, 
Phineas Parmalee, 
Nathan Field, 
Jonah Buell, 



than those already named some of them among 



Uriah Kelsey, 
Jedediah Crosby, [his 
son Luther,^a present jus- 
tice of the peace in Ber- 
gen, ■was the first bom 
in the town.] 
"Wickhani Field, 
Unah Crampton, 
Ashbell Crampton, 
Samuel Bassett, 
Harvey Kelsey, 



LEVI WARD. 



M. Wright, 

Jacob Spattbrd, Sen, 
Nathaniel Spaftbrd, 
Aaron Arnold, 
Oliver Avery, 
Samuel Butler, 
Abel Fuller, 
Bela Munger, 
Jesse Barber, 
James Hunger. 



Dr Levi Ward was a native of KiUincrworth, Conn., a son of 

Levi Ward He studied his profession with Dr. Jonathan 1 odd, ot 

Guilford, and marrying the daughter of Daniel Hand,- settled m 

practice' in Haddam, in 1790, where he contmued until 1807, m 

which year he emigrated to the Genesee country ; his lamily then 

consistino- of his wife, and four sons, and four daughters. He was 

accompanied by his brother, John Ward, and his tamily. The em- 

icrrants arrived at Le Roy undetermined as to their location ; falling 

iS with R M. Stoddard, the then agent of the Triangle, whom they 

had known in New England, they were induced to cast their lot 

with a few old neighbors who had preceded them, m what was then 

called the "north woods;" then mostly a dense, heavily timbered 

forest rur^cred in all its features; now the smiling and prosperous 

acrricultuS neighborhood, contiguous to the Rail Road station m 

B'ercren. Finding temporary quarters in the newly erected log 

houJe of Daniel Kelsey, Dr. Ward erected a small framed house, 

coverino- it with cedar shingles, and using rived cedar for siding. 

The Dr quaintly observes, that even that manner of building was 

ahead of the times, and in a region of log cabins, was deemed some- 

what aristocratic, His brother erected a log house ; both went to 

clearing land, but it took about a year to make an opemng suthcient 

to see out without looking up. . , . .i • 

It was on Saturday when the emigrants arrived at their new 
home in the wilderness ; accustomed to a regular attendence upon 
public worship, the first business was to provide for religious exer- 
cises • ? meeting was agreed upon at the house of a new settler; 14 
or 15 persons convened from their scattered woods homes ; prayers 



* rawHiu Hand Tvas an officer of the Revolution, a highly respected and usefux 
membl ofsocfetv, a professor and promoter of rehgion. He died at an advanced 
ao'e, in GuUford, the place of his birth. 



556 PHELPS AISTD GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

were made, a sermon was read, and Mrs. Ward says they " had ex- 
cellent singing."* 

For nine years Dr. Ward was one of the active and prominent 
Pioneers of his locality ; an effiicient helper in all there was to be 
done in the backwoods, in religious and school organizations in, the 
opening of new roads, &c. Coming to the new region, to be the 
founder of a new home for himself and his large fan)ily, rather than 
with reference to the practice of his profession, his practice was 
only to the extent that the absence of other physicians in the new 
region made necessary. To the labor of clearing heavily timbered 
land, and subduing a rugged soil, was soon added, as will be observ- 
ed, a land agency, which made him the founder, or agent of settle- 
ment in his immediate neighborhood. In 1811 he was appointed 
an agent or commissioner, to settle the accounts of the commission- 
ers who had constructed the primitive bridge over the Genesee 
River, upon the site of Rochester. There was no mail routes, or 
post offices north of the main Bufialo road until 18l2. In that 
year, Dr. Ward interceded with the then P. M. General, Gideon 
Granger, and obtained from him authority to transport a weekly 
mail from Caladonia, via Riga, Murray, Parma, Northampton, to 
Charlotte, at the mouth of the Genesee River. His compensation 
was the net proceeds of letter and newspaper postages collected on 
the route. It was provided in the contract that the P. M. G. would 
appoint deputy post masters, in any locations the contractor should 
disignate, which were seven miles distant from each other. The 
plan was put in successful operation. Routes were extended by Dr. 
Wai-d, upon the same terms, along on Ridge Road to Oak Orchard 
Creek ; from Clarkson corners through Sweeden, to Bergen ; from 
Parma through Ogden and Riga to Bergen ; from Bergen to Bata- 
via.t This system continued until 1820, supplying the early con- 
venience of mail facilities to a wide, sparsely populated region, 
when it was superceded by the ordinary contract system. 

In the war of 1812, in an exigency of anticipated invasion, and 
a want of arms, Dr. Ward collected all the muskets, rifles, cartouch 
boxes and bayonets in his neighborhood, and delivered them to Col. 
Daniel Davis for the use of his Regiment. Twenty-one muskets, 
and cartouch boxes, and bayonets, and four rifles ; J and besides all 

* In the same year a Congregational Church was organized, the second one west of 
Genesee River. The Rev. Allen Hollister, ministered alternately to this church and 
the one organized in Riga. The Rev. Harmon Halsey, now a resident of Wilson. 
.Niagara county, was an early settled minister. Dr. Levi Ward and Uriah CramptoTj 
are among the few who survive of the earliest members of this church. 

t Prettly liberal time was allowed, corresponding with the condition of primitive 
roads. It was stipulated that the mail should " leave Caladonia every Monday at 8 
A. M., and anive at Charlotte on Tuesday, by 4 P. M." 

t It has been before remarked that a large proportion of the Pioneers of the Genesee 
country had been officers and soldiers of the Revolution. Most of the muskets co] - 
lected'in Bergen, belonged at the time to those who had used them in that contest 
for nationaal independence. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM S PURCHASE. 



557 



the powder and balls of the new settlement were put in requisition. 
In another crisis, at the requisition of Major General Hall, a com- 
pany of exempts, or " silver grays," were raised in Bergen, and Dr. 
Ward was elected to the command of it. Though the company saw 
no service, no marching orders having been received, and no inva- 
sion extending as far as that locality, the muster roll is copied, ex- 
hibiting as it does Pioneer names, and shewing who were willing in 
that crisis to waive a legal exemption and engage in the defence of 
their country : 



Levi Ward. Jr. Capt. 
Jesse Barber, Lt. 
Amos Hewit, 2d Lt. 
Joseph Langdon, Ensign. 
Calvin Wells, Sergeant, 
Reuben Langxlon, " 

Wheaton Southworth, " 
William Peters, " 

Leonard Tuttle, Corporal. 
Benj W. Elsworlli, 
John Colman, " 

John Dibble, 
John K Larkins, " 

Wm. H. Ward, 
Music. 
James Munger, Drummer. 
Simon Pierson, Fifer, 
Benjamin Wright, Private, 
Josiah Pierson, " 



John Ward, 
Jesse Munger, 
Samuel Taggart, 
Joseph Lonl, 
Lodowick Wright, 
William Crowell, 
Jehoida Page. 
John Dulap, 
Asa Williams, 
TheophUus M. Fenn, 
William Jones, 
Benham Preston, 
Amasa Walker, 
Cyrus Walker, 
Samuel Hammond, 
Joshua Wriglit, 
James Tillotson, 
Amos Allen, 



Private. 



Martin Richmond, Private. 

Nathan Rogers, " 

Isaac Baker, " 

Dennis Magden, " 

Abner Phelps, " 

Orange Throop, " 
Joshua Green, 

Moses Brown, " 

William Shepherd, " 

Linus Kelsey, " 

Samuel Tliroop, " 

John T. Freeman, " 

Asa Merrills, " 

Josiah Buel, '' 
Wm. Buel, 
Adin Kurd, 
Amos Chamberlin, 

Samuel Tillotson, " 



Elijah Loomis, " 

Dr. Ward was for six or seven years the supervisor of his town, 
and at one period one of the Judges of Genesee county. 

In 1817 he changed his residence from Bergen to the village of 
Rochester; thus becoming a Pioneer in a new locality, with which 
he has been prominently identified in most of its history of rapid 
progress. One of the first to break into the wilderness region north 
of the old Buffalo road — he has survived to see it become one broad 
theatre of agricultural wealth, comfort and prosperity. One of the 
first to cast his lot in a primitive village, while the forest was yet 
but partially cleared away ; where the wolf, the bear, the deer and 
the rattlesnake had but just had notice to quit — he has survived 
to see it become the fifth city of the Eii;ipire State ; to see it a scene 
of unsurpassed business activity and enterprise ; endowed with re- 
ligious and literary institutions, and all the evidences of substantial 
progress, intelligence, and refinement. 

He is now in his 80th year ; the wife and mother, who accompa- 
nied him in his primitive advent, nearly of the same age. With 
the sands of life running low, yet blessed with a more than usual 
exemption from the infirmities of age, enjoying all of temporal bless- 
ings, in the midst of a large circle of their descendants, they are 
calmly and serenely awating the summons to depart from the the- 
atre of life, upon which they have so well performed their parts. 

The eldest son, Wm. H. Ward, who was P. M. at Bergen, the 



558 PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 

first north of Le Roy and Caladonia; a Colonel of Militia in early 
years, and an early merchant of Rochester; died in 1838, aged 45 
years. Another son, Daniel H., died in 1846, aged 50 years. Sur- 
viving sons, are : — Henry M. Ward, a resident of Illinois ; Levi 
A. VVard, an Ex-Mayor of Rochester ; Ferdinand D. W. Ward, a 
returned Missionary from Madras, in the East Indies, author of a 
work entitled " India and the Hindoos," now a settled minister at 
Geneseo. Daughters, are the wives of Silas O. Smith, Samuel L. 
Selden, Charles^L. Clarke and Freeman Clark, of Rochester. A 
deceased daughter was the wife of Moses Chapin ; she died in 1823, 
acred 25 years. Another deceased daughter was the wife of Dan- 
iel Hand, a prominent and successful merchant m Augusta, Georgia; 
she died in 1839, aged 35 years. 

The father of Dr. Ward, who followed him to the Genesee coun- 
try in early years, died in Bergen in 1838 at the advanced age of 
over 92 years. The brother," John Ward, survives, a resident of 
Bergen, aged 81 years ; his surviving sons are, Martin, Abel, John, 
Philo and Horatio Ward. 

The northern portion of the Triangle, Sweeden and Clarkson, 
began to be settled in 1804. '5, or rather land contracts were taken 
in Ihose years, and it is presumed that actual settlement soon follow- 
ed, though it progressed slowly, as in all the region north of the then 
principal thorough-fare, the Buffalo Road. 

Dr. Abel BaldWin, is one of the oldest surviving residents. He 
was a native of Norwich, Vermont; studied medicine with Dr. 
Nathan Smith of Hanover, N. H. Dr. Thurber, of Riga, Dr. 
Nathaniel Rowley, of Clarkson, Dr. Jacobs and the late Dr. Bemis,_of 
Canandaigua, w^ere his fellow students. Dr. Baldwin settled in 
practice in Saratoga county in 1807 — in 1810 first visited the Gen- 
esee country — in "181 1 removed to Clarkson. Practicing medicine 
only in the earliest years, h? opened a public house in 1815, at what 
was then called "Murray Corners," now Clarkson village. He 
erected the first framed tavern house on the Ridge Road ; travel up- 
on the Ridge had then became pretty brisk — Falls travel had be- 
gan to take that route ; the house of Dr. Baldwin being about half 
way from Canandaigua to Lewiston, was a prominent halting place. 
In fact, Clarkson Corners, at that period, and up to the final com- 
pletion of the Erie Canal, in reference to all the northern region, 
was a prominent locality. Dr. Baldwin continued a landlord until 
1825, when he was succeeded by Mr. Silas Walbridge; he is now 
an enterprising and successful farmer. He was an Elector of Pres- 

NoTE. — It will give the reader some idea of the slow progi-ess of settlement in aJl 
the region between the old Buffalo road and Lake Ontario, to learn, that as late as the 
war of 1812, so little was known of that best of all natural highways in the world, 
the Ridge Road, that a larije array, with heavy artillery, camp equipage &c., the des- 
tination of wliich was Lewiston, actually diverged from the Ridge at Clarkson, and 
went via Bergen and Batavia. 



PKELPS AlN'D CtORHAJl's PURCnASE. 559 

ident and Vice President, in 1832. Mrs. Baldwin also survives ; 
an only daughter is the wife of Henry R. Selden. 



REMIN"ISCE>fCES OF DR. BALDWIN. 



When I moved into tlie country in 1811, with my family, we were fer- 
ried over the Genesee river at Rochester; the Ridge road was only cut 
out wide enough for a wagon track; the streams were crossed by means of 
log bridges. Upon the present site of Clarkson village, there were three 
log-houses ; and in all, perhaps, thirty acres of land cleared. James Sayre 
was the Pioneer of the locality; in fact, the first settler on Ridge, in what 
is now Clarkson and Murray, and I think, Parma. He had selected this 
spot on account of a fine spring, before any thing was known of a continu- 
ous Ridge road. Sayre, who had taken up considerable land, sold his 
contracts and removed. Beside him, I found here: — David Forsyth, who 
I'emained here until 1849, when he removed to Michigan. Deacon Joel 
Palmer had just commenced tanning and currying in a rude primitive es- 
tablishment, the first upon all the Ridge road. He still survives, a resi- 
dent of Clarkson ; Joel Albert and John Palmer, of Clarkson, are his sons. 
Dr. Nathaniel Rowell had preceded me a few months, and was in practice 
among the new settlers. He was from Hanover, N. H. ; died in 182(3; 
Hopkins Rowell, of Clarkson, is his son ; two other sons are clergymen in 
New Jersey; Mrs. Henry Smith and Mrs. Danforth are his daughters. 
Eldridge Farwell had located here, but removed soon, and became the 
Pioneer of what is now Clarendon, erecting mills there. Eldridge, Geo. 
and Horace Farwell are his sons. West of the Corners, on the Ridge, 
John and Isaac Farwell, brothers of Eldridge, had settled. The saw-mill 
of the afterwards Judge Eldridge Farwell, in Clarendon, made the first 
boards had in all this region, and his was the pioneer grist-mill, excepting 
a small log mill the Atchinsons had erected on Salmon Creek. We had 
our first milhng done at Church's mill in Riga. 

In all the region north of Ridge, in what is now Clarkson and Murray, 
Moody Freeman was the Pioneer. He was originally from Hanover, N. 
H. ; had pioneered his way all along ; had been the proprietor of the town 
of EUisburg, Jefferson count}^; and one of the earliest settlers of Broad- 
albin, Montgomery county. He made his solitary home two miles north 
of the Corners, at the centre of the township. He was an early Justice of 
the Peace : a man of more than ordinary natural abilities ; was an early 
backwood's lawyer, or pettifogger. There was in Clarkson, north of Ridge, 
beside Freeman, in 1811 : — Eratus Haskell, who had taken up land upon 
which there were salt springs — and set up a few kettles, and was boiling 
salt for the new settlers. Haskell was a captain of militia in the war of 
1812; was at the sortie of Fort Erie. He now resides in Joliet, Illinois. 
Stephen Baxter settled in that neighborhood in 1811, and also engaged 
early in salt boiling. He still survives, and has a large number of de- 



560 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PTJECHASE. 

scendants in the neighborhood. John Nowlan was also settled in the Free- 
man neighborhood; still survives, over 80 years of age. 

The war of 1812 stopped all settlement and improvement. There was 
a constant state of excitement and alarm ; many new settlers broke up and 
left the country. The Ridge road was a thoroughfare for troops passing, 
to and from the Frontier. When Lewiston was burned, many famiUes 
came and wintered along on Ridge road; the families of the late Sheldon 
Thompson, of Buffalo, Joshua Fairbanks, Mr, Townsend, and Dr. Smith, 
stopped in Clarkson. A company of i-iflemen was raised in this vicinity, 
commanded by captain Stewart; went upon the frontier, and at one period 
at the mouth of the river ; they acted mostly as minute men. There 
were besides, militia drafts and volunteering during the war. 

Immediately after the war, settlers came in rapidly. The Ridge road 
may almost be said to have settled in its whole extent west of Genesee 
river, in 1816. Previous to that, there was but few settlers upon it; es- 
pecially in Monroe and Orleans. 

The first town meeting of Murray, was held at the barn of Johnson 
Bedel, about four miles south of Brockport. The Pioneer of Brockport 
and its neighborhood, was Rufus Hammond. His farm embraced a part 
of the northern portion of the village. He had been settled five or six 
years when I canie; had an orchard and a considerable improvement. He 
had formerly hved in Avon ; died in 182-4; Shubel Hammond, of Clark- 
son, is his son. Either Mr. Hammond or Mr. Freeman raised the first crops 
in this region. I raised ihe first framed barn ; Isaac B. Williams the first 
framed house, upon the site of the present brick tavern. I omitted to 
name Mr. Williams, as one who was here previous to 1811 ; he was the 
Pioneer blacksmith. He removed to Hartland, where he died several 
years since; Wilham Williams, of Clarkson, is his son. 

In 1817, a considerable settlement had been made at Sandy Creek, on 
the Ridge — Id or 20 families, perhaps — in which year, Henry M'Call and 
Robert Perry built mills there ; raising a dam and overflowing 15 or 20 
acres of timbered land. A sickness that pervaded every household in the 
neighborhood, soon followed; in one season, in a population of about 100, 
there were 27 deaths. The settlers from other neighborhoods had to go 
there and take care of the sick, as there were not well ones enough there 
to do so ; — it was a neighborhood of gloom and desohtion. The mill dam 
was taken down, and the sickness disappeared. 

The first settler at the mouth of Sandy Creek, was a Dutchman by the 
name of Strunk. When I first visited the place in 1812, he had died, and 
a man by tlie name of Billings was living there ; and others had been there, 
I presume, for there were several deserted log houses. Billings removed 
to Canada. After that, settlers would come in by water, and after remain- 

Note. — Salt springs break out all along on the slope north of Ridge — generally 
about three miles distant. They break out from the Clinton Group, which is next 
above the Medina Sand Stone. '^In the early settlement of the country, salt was manu- 
factured near Lockport, Medina, at Oak Orchard, in Clarkson, Parma,"HoUey, Webster, 
Ontaiio and Sodus. The salt was usually afforded at about a dollar per bushel. The 
weakness of the brine forbid competition with the works at Montezuma and Salt 
Point, when the Erie Canal was finished ; and the business, in fact, had began to de- 
cline previous to that. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 561 

ing a short time, would be taken sick, and have to be brought out to the 
older settlements on ox-sleds. The first permanent settler in that locality, 
was Alanson Thomas, at the head of still water. He purchased a saw- 
mill that Le Roy and Bayard had built there in 1820; to which he added 
a grist-mill. Thomas sold out to a community of Fourerites.* 

The whole region between Ridge and Lake, and more especially, per- 
haps, in Murray, Clarkson and Parma, was as forbidding as any that stout 
hearted Pioneers ever ventured to break into. Its settlement was attend- 
ed with long years of hardships and privations ; many changes of inhabitants 
occurred before there was a permanent population. It was heavy timbered, 
mostly a wet soil; when the timber was removed, openings made, the heat 
of summer suns would engender disease. Those who lived along on the im - 
mediate shores of the Lake, or on the Ridge, not in the immediate vicinity 
of ponds or marshes, would generally escape; the scourge would principal- 
ly prevail where openings had been made in heavily timbered wet lands. 
Sickness would generally commence in August, and continue until winter ; 
it was by no means fatal ; where there could be even good nursing, the 
proportions of deaths to the number of cases would be small ; but at times 
sickness would be so pervading, that good nursing could not be had. It 
was a common thing to bring whole families out of the woods upon ox- 
sleds. 

Speaking from observation and experience, my adv ice would be to all 
those who are settling a new timbered region, to select the most elevated 
sites for their residence, and leave several acres of timber standing for the 
few earliest years about their dwellings ; and what is of still greater im- 
portance, if they have not good springs of water, dig wells to begin with, 
and thus avoid the poisonous surface water, which is of itself a pregnant 
source of disease in new settlements in the forests. 

A log school house had been erected, and a school was in operation, 
when I came there in 1811. Our first settled minister was the Rev. John 
F. Bliss; the Rev. Mr. James, of Albany, was settled here in 1825 or '6. 



No where in a wide region of prosperity, has there been a greater 
change than in the locality that Dr. Baldwin embraces in his obser- 
vations, north of the Ridge. Even the Pioneers, stout hearted, san- 
quine as their anticipations must have been, in reference to the 
ultimate value of the land, to have endured what they did, could 
hardly have anticipated the sources of agricultural wealth that 
through so many trials and difficulties they were developing. The 
soil they were not strong handed enough to drain ; that they could 
but imperfectly cultivate while the stumps and roots remained in it ; 
and which gave them but poor returns for the labor, is now dry, sub- 
dued, its surface mould mingled with the rich elements that lay hid- 

* The whole thing has been a failure. The principal leaders were : — Simeon Dag- 
gett, Dr. Theller, Thomas Pound. Many dwellings Avere erected, and a population of 
about 300 gathered there. The commuuity broke up after an exjieriment of two 
years. 



562 PHELPS AJSTD GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

den its sub-soil ; and no where does the earth make more bountiful 
returns for the labor bestowed upon it. It has become a region of 
high priced and desirable farms. The sites of bark covered log 
houses and thatched hovels, have now upon them comfortable and 
even luxurious brick and framed farm houses, and all the appoint- 
ments of flourishing farming establishments. Good common roads 
and even plank roads have taken the place of the wood's roads 
through which the pioneers plodded — more than half the season 
waded through mud and mire — and over which some of them, as 
we have seen, and their families, were carried by the good Sama- 
ritans of the older settlements, who would find them in the dark 
recesses of the forest, prostrated by disease. 

Asa Clark, the father of Gustavus Clark, of Clarkson, was from 
East Haddam, Conn., emigrated to Geneseo in 1802 ; soon removed 
to Avon, where he resided until 1830. He died at Sandy Creek in 
1834, aged 76 years. His sons were : — Asa Clark, who resided in 
Avon until 1828, when he removed to Sandy Creek, where he was 
a merchant for many years. He' was a representative in the State 
legislature of Orleans, in 1834, '5, had been a Presidential Elector 
in 1828. He still survives, at the age of 66 years. George W., 
and Charles Clark of Buffalo, are his sons. Erastus Clark, of Lima, 
who in early early years was the mercantile partner of James K. 
Guernsey, and afterwards established in the mercantile business by 
himself in Lima. He still survives ; a son and a son-in-law, are his 
successors in business. Gustavus Clark, who as early as 1806, was 
a clerk with Minor & Hall, at Geneseo ; afterwards a clerk of James 
K. Guernsey in Lima, under whose auspices he commenced busi- 
ness in Clarkson, where he has resided since 1815, and where he 
still resides. His wife, who still survives, was a daughter of John 
Pierson, one of the pioneers of Avon ; Edwan E., of Clarkson, and 
Bushrod W. Clark, of Buffalo, are sons of Gustavus ; an only daugh- 
ter is the wife of W. L. G. Smith, ot Buffalo. He was a represen- 
tative from Monroe, in the Legislature, in 1825 ; and w^as the first 
President of the Bank of Orleans; an early Supervisor of Clarkson, 
and more recently, a magistrate. The daughters of the elder Asa 
Clark, became the wives of Robert M'Kay, of Caladonia, Ephraim 
Chapman, a pioneer in Portage county, Ohio, and Chandler Pierson, 
of Avon. 



REMINISCENCES OF GUSTAVUS CLARK. 



When I came to Clarkson, in 1815, the Ridge road was but little travel- 
led for want of bridges ; my first load of goods broke most of the bridges 
down from Rochester to Clarkson, and the team was obliged to return to 
Lima via the south road and Le Roy. That road had been opened before 



PHELPS AND GOEHAai's PURCHASE. 563 

the Eidge road was travelled at all. My first principal business was to pay 
part goods and part cash for black salts and pot-asli. Henry M'Call, a 
brother of Judge M'Call, of Allegany county, had been first engaged ia 
mercantile business in Clarkson; and Joshua Field, now of Brockport, had 
also been merchandizing here. James Seymour Avas the successor of 
Field. All of these had been engaged in the manufactury of pot-ash; in 
fact, that was then the staple production of all this region. It was the 
first available mean« that the new settlers had to pay for store goods, or to 
raise a little money; it was a great help to them; I hardly know how they 
could have got along without it. It was a period when but few of the set- 
tlers had raised any grain to sell. The new settlers would put up a few 
rough leaches, and generally make black salts; those who were strong- 
handed enough, and could raise kettles, would make pot-ash. -Upon lands 
where beech maple and elm predominated, the ashes would almost pay for 
clearing. Many times when a new settler was under the necessity of rais- 
ing money, or stood in need of store trade, he would go into the forest, 
chop down maple and elm trees, roll them together, and burn them, for the 
ashes alone, without reference to clearing. The proceeds of ashes have 
supplied many a log cabin in this region with the common necessaries of 
life, in the absence of Avhich there would have been destitution. Our pot- 
ash was taken to the mouth of the Genesee river and shipped to Montreal. 
I have sold it in Montreal for as high a price as $305 per ton. Lumber- 
ng, the getting out, purchasing and shipping of oak butt staves, was the 
next considerable business after that of pot-ash, and helped the new set- 
tlers along until we had the Erie Canal, and a surplus of grain to send up- 
on it to market. 

The Ridge road was much improved soon after 1815, by the erection of 
substantial bridges over the streams. A post route was established from 
Canandaigua to Lewiston, in November 1815. At first, the mail was car- 
ried in a small wagon, twice a week. In 1820, daily coaches were put 
upon the route ; travel increased rapidly ; for a few years before the canal 
was completed, there were coaches almost continually in sight. 



Lyman Warren, settled upon the Ridaje, in east part of Clarkson, 
in 1817 ; still survives, at the age of 80 years. He is the father of 

Note. — In May, 1807, Mr. Wadswortli urges Mr. Troup by letter, to encourage the 
manufacture of pot-ash ; says it will be a gTeat help to new settlers, and encourage 
them to clear their lands ; and adds, that Mr. Murray has authorized him to buy two 
kettles for the inliabitants of "Fairlield," (Ogden.) In December of the same year, 
he writes to Mr. Troup : — You can hardly imagine what a spring the two pot-ash 
kettles I have sent to Fairfield has given to the clearing of land, and what a great ac- 
commodation it is considered by the inhabitants. The situation of the inhabitants ia 
this part of the country has really been distressing ; a farmer might have 1,000 bushels 
of wheat in his barn, and yet not be able to buy a pound of tea ! Till of late, the 
merchants have began to take wheat for goods, but at a very low price." ''I fuUy 
believe that the profits a farmer can make from the ashes on an acre of timbered land, 
is greater than the profits on an acre of wheat. I much wish that some mode could 
be hit upon to convince Lady Bath how much the value of her estate would be en- 
hanced by facilitating the transportation of pot-ash and hemp to Mouti'eal." [Tliis 
has reference to some change in the British revenue laws.] 



564 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

Capt. Henry Warren, who has been for many years the popular 
manager of one of the Rochester and Buflalo canal Packets. At 
the period he located upon the Ridge, there were settled in north of 
his locality, in what was called the " north woods," three brothers : 
Adam, Henry and James Moore. They were Irishmen ; neither of 
them survives; there are many of their desendants in the neighbor- 
hood ; John and Thomas Moore, early settlers of Lockport, were the 
sons of Adam. The Hoy family, also Irishmen, were settled in the 
same neighborhood ; the old gentleman died in 1838 or '9 ; his sons 
were : James, John, and Robert Hoy ; many of the desendants 
reside in Clarkson. It was pretty much a wilderness north of 
Ridge in 1817. There had settled along" the Ridge in Clarkson : 
Eli Annable, who is now living ; had come in previous to war. John 
H. Bushnell was the Pioneer of the neighborhood ; died about five 
years since ; widow still survives ; Sidney and John Bushnell are 
his sons ; he was a supervisor and magistrate. Ebenezer Toll, re- 
moved to Gaines, where he died about fifteen years since. The first 

tavern keeper at Ladd's corners, was Huysott ; Reuben 

Downs was an early tavern keeper east of Ladd's corners. John 
Philips, afterwards sheriff of Niagara, kept a tavern in the neighbor- 
hood in an early day. 

The village of Brockport, was one of the creations of the Erie 
canal, and is of course not embraced in the Pioneer period. Pre- 
vious to the construction of the canal, there was at that point — upon 
the site of one of the most flourishing villages in Western New 
York — but the farm houses of Rufus Hammond and Hiel Brockway. 

The village started up under the auspices of Mr. Brockway, and 
to his extraordinary enterprize was much indebted in all its early 
years. He was a native of Lyme, Conn., settled first in this State 
at Cattskill, about the year 1800 ; emigrated to the Genesee country 
in an early day, and was a resident first in Geneva and then in 
Phelps. Soon after the war of 1812, he removed to the then town 
of Murray, afterwards Sweeden, and purchased the farms of two or 
three of the early settlers, at the rate of ^12 and 815 per acre. The 
site of Brockport and its vicinity was then but a region of log 
houses and small improvements. The locality had no other advan- 
tages than of being the point where a main north and south thorough 
fare crossed the canal ; and of being in the centre of a region which 
promised to become, as it has, one of the richest agriculture districts 
of Western New York. The village took a rapid start after the canal 
was completed, and has had a steady and uninterrupted growth. 

In addition to other early enterprizes, Mr. Brockway was en- 
gaged extensively in the packet boat business ; first putting on boats 
between Rochester and Bufflilo in opposition to the old packet line 
from Utica to Buffalo ; then filling ui)"the portion of that line west 
of Rochester with his own boats in connection with that line. He 
made Brockport the central locality in reference to packet boat 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 565, 

operations at the west ; infused a new spirit of enterprise into thie 
business ; and to him, in fact, have the travelHng pubUc been largelv 
indebted for the superior packet boats, and their excellent manage- 
ment, that have for a long series of years been enjoyed upon the 
western section of the Erie canal. To part with them and their 
excellent managers, most of whom have been educated in the school 
of Mr. Brockway, (and he was a shrewd judge of men as well of 
horses, and of the best model of boats,) will seem like parting with 
old friends ; and yet the event would seem to be near at hand, for 
soon the shrill notes of the steam whistle will be heard along the 
line, where their horns have so long sounded ; and haste, speed, 
regardless of comfort, is the order of the day. 

Mr. Brockway died in 1842, aged 67 years ; of a large family of 
children — 13 in number — but 4 survive : Charles M., and Nathan 
R. Brockway, Mrs. Dr. Carpenter, and Mrs. Elias B. Holmes. 

A portion of the village has grown up on non-resident land that 
James Seymour purchased about the time the canal was constructed. 
Mr. Seymour was an early merchant in the village ; the President 
of the bank of Rochester; was the fortunate owner of the land on 
which the capital of Michigan was located ; and is now a resident 
there. 

The town of Sweeden was pretty generally settled before the con- 
struction of the Erie canal, but a large portion of the farms had been 
but recently commenced. When the town was organized, in 1821, 
there were 330 inhabitants liable to assessment upon the highways. 
The first supervisor was Silas Judson. the town clerk. Major M. 
Smith ; other town officers : Joshua B. Adams, Chauncey Staples, 
Abel Giftbrd, Levi Branch, Zenas Case, Oliver Spencer, Zenas Case. 
Jr., Samuel Bishop, Levi Pond, Sylvester Pease, Daniel i. Avery, 
Joseph S. Bosworth, John Reeves, Peter Sutven, Joseph Randall. 

The early physicians of village and town, were : — Daniel J. 

Avery, the father of Daniel J. Avery of Sweeden, Millican. 

John B. Elliott, Elizur Munger, Davis Carpenter, M. D. 

Levi Pond settled in Sweeden in 1817, purchasing a farm in the 
north part of the town ; still survives. He has filled the several 
offices of deputy sheriff', constable and collector, and in 1833 was 
one of the representatives of Monroe in the Legislature. He is the 
father of Elias Pond, late collector of the Genesee District. 



THE CONNECTICUT, OR "100,000 ACRE TRACT." 



Robert Morris sold this tract to Andrew Cragie, James Watson, 
and James Greenlief, for $37,500. Oliver Phelps purchased an 
equal undivided half of it in 1794, which he conveyed to De Witt 
Clinton in 1095 ; it reverted, and Mr. Phelps sold his interest to the 



566 PHELPS Ai^D goeham's puechase. 

State of Connecticut. The other half was sold by Mr. Cragie tc 
Charles Williamson and Thomas Morris, and ultimately the title 
became vested in Sir Wm. Pulteney; the State of Connecticut 
and Sir William Pulteney thus becoming tenants in common,, 
in 1808, the commissioners of the school fund of Connecticut, 
(the purchase having been made out of that fund,) appointed Levi 
Ward, Jr., who had then recently settled in Bergen, to act in their 
behalf, and in co-operation with Col. Troup, the local representative 
of the Pulteney interest, to procure the survey of the tract. This 
accomphshed, in March 1810, Dr. Ward was further empowered in 
co-operation with Col. Troup, in behalf of the commissioners of the 
school fund, to procure an equitable partition of the tract. Israel 
Chapin and Amos Hall were mutually appointed by Messrs. Troup 
and Ward, for that purpose, and made the partition. 

Fifty thousand acres of the tract having been vested in the com- 
missioners of the school fund, in July 1810, they appointed Dr. 
Ward their local agent for the sale of it. In September of the 
same year Dr. Ward commenced the sales of farm lots. The sales 
progressed until 1816 under this agency, when Dr. Ward and Levi 
H. Clark, purchased of the State of Connecticut all the unsold 
lands. By agreement, the sales were continued in the name of the 
State, until the whole was disposed of to actual settlers. The bonds 
belonging to the State, have remained in charge of Dr. Ward, until 
the present time ; the management of the property for the last ten 
or fifteen years, since the retirement of Dr. Ward from active busi- 
ness, has devolved upon bis son Levi A. Ward. 

The half belonging to the Pulteney estate, was managed in Col. 
Troup's agency and that of his successor, Mr. Fellows. The 100,- 
000 acre* or as it has usually been called, the Connecticut Tract, is 
bounded north by Lake Ontario, west by the Holland Company, or 
transit line, south by an east and west line, a little north of the Buf- 
falo road in the town of Stafford, and east by the west line of the 
Triangle. In it, are now embraced the towns of Kendall, Murray, 
Clarendon, Byron and a small portion of Le Roy, Stafford and Ber- 
gen. 

The whole tract as will have been observed, was settled after the 
general Pioneer period, and it is one of the localities of the settle. 

Note. — A singular incident is connected -with the title to the 100,000 tract— After 
sales had commeiiced and progi-essed several years, Seth P. Beers, who represented 
the State of Connecticut, and Joseph Fellows, the agent of the Pulteney estate, discov- 
ered, tliat a deed from one of the early grantors was lost, and not upon record. Mr. 
Beers sought out and importuned the grantor to substitute a new one — offered him •• 
,^10,000 which he refusetl, demanding $20,000. Another of the early proprietors who 
had been fauiiliar with all the transfers, was upon jail limits in the city of Washhig- 
ton. Mr. Beers repaired to that city and he assured him lie could find the deed in 
Philadelphia. Procuring a caniage, Mr. Beers took him from the jail limits under 
cover of night, conveyed him to Philadel]jhia, he found the deed, and was returned 
to the jail hmits before his absence was discovered. For $1000 donated to the finder, 
title was perfected without yielding to the exhorbituut demands of one who was for 
taking advantage of the loss of the deed. 



PHELPS AKD GOEHAjVi's PUECHASE. 



567 



ment of which the author has received but meager reminiscences. 
Benham Preston was thg first settler, preceded survey and the 
opening of sales. He went in from Stafford, on the Buffalo road, 
and set his family down upon Black creek, without a shelter, while 
he went through the woods to the then new settlement of Bergen, 
and procured the aid of Henry D. Gifford and others in erecting a 
rude cabin. 

The following are the names of most of all who took contracts 
upon the whole tract, or deeds, the first five years after sales com- 
menced. As in the instance of the Trangle, it will generally, but 
not invariably, indicate who were the Pioneers : — 



Samuel Lincoln, 
Paul Knowlton, 
Aaron Scribner, 
Ella Smith, 
William Wood, 
Horace Langdon, 
Amos Bosworth, 
EHjah Brown, 



Elijah Loomis, 
Samuel HaU, 
Silas Holbrook, 
Uriel Holcomb, 
Major Osborne, 
Munson Hobbs, 
Jas. M. Price, 
Chester Holbrook, 
Silas Hazen, 
Amasa Walker, 
Jacob Spafibrd, 
Timothy T. Hart, 
Alfred Ward, 
Joshua Wright, 
Eliab Wright, 
Jared Child, 
Selah M. Wright. 
Ezekiel Case, 
Wm. Jenny, 
Benajah Giswold, 



Simeon Hosmer, 
Samuel Hosmer, 
Gideon Hazen, 
Jacob Dunning, 
Caleb Miller, 
Anthony Miller, 
Amos Lampson, 
Paul Knowlton, 
"Wm. Croswell, 
Seth Griswold, 
Benj. Livermore, 
Paiii Ballard, 



1810- 

Nathan George, 
John Smith, 
John Coleman, 
Sdas Taylor, 
Elisha Taylor, 
Eli Mead, 
John Mead, 



1811. 

Elijah Shumway, 
Henry Mead, 
John Gookin, 
HaiTey Prentice, 
Nathan Squier, 
Stephen Parkhurst, 
Ishi Parmelee, 
Daniel Beckley 
Elijah Warner, 
John Thwiug, 
John Thwing, Jr., 
Frederick Jones, 
George Christ, 
William Wolcott, 
Manning Richardson, 
Daniel Carpenter, 
Ami Curtiss, 
Ira Scribner, 
Joseph Barker, 
Wniiam Strong, 

1812. 

Amasa Heath, 
Justis Taylor, 
Samuel Payne, 
John P. Bishop), 
Page Russell, 
Enos Bush, 
Abel Hyde, 
John Carniff, 
John Tucker, 
John Van Valkenbm"g, 
Samuel Hammond, 
Daniel Woodward, 



Greenraan Cai-penter, 
Adam Gardner, 
Jonathan Sprague, 
Darius Sprague, 
John Farewell, 
William Bmlingame, 
Joshua Whaley. 



William Shepard, 
Grover GHlum. 
Job Jordon, 
Edmund Wilcox, 
Asa Merrils, 
George Holt, 
John Janes, 
David Loomis, 
Hubbard Everts, 
Samuel Parker, 
William Parker, 
Enoch Eastman, 
John Johnson, 
John Cummings, 
Randal Stivers, 
John Stivers, 
Radley Randal, 
Isaac B. Williams, 
Oliver Van Kirk. 



John Freeman, 
George Barton, 
Ahimaz Brainard, 
Thompson & Tuttle, 
Justis Parish, 
Moses Green, 
M. J. HiU, 
R. Lucas, 
A. Webb, 
Augustus White, 
Heniy Menill, 
Lyman Griswold, 



568 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM S PURCHASE. 



Zcno Terry, 
John Sayres, 
Fathan Bannister, 
Zuri Stephens, 
Pliiiey Sanderson, 
Presei-ved Richmond, 
Nathan Ladd, 
Mathew Hannah, 
John Richards 
William Preston, 
Josiah Heath, 



Page, 

Homer H. Campbell, 
Silas Williams, 
Salmon Patterson. 
Lyman Isbel, 
James Douglass, 
Consider Warner, 
John Douglas, 
Theodore Drake, 
B^irncy Carpenter, 
William Rht)ades,% 
Amasa Haskell, 
William Wood, 



Chauncey Robinson, 
Daniel Gleason, 
John Stephens, 
Shubel Lewis, 
Oliver Smith, 
John SouthAvorth, 



George Campbell, 
Joseph Langdon, 
Ezra Sanford, 
Lodowick Wright, 
Beiiham Preston, 
Heniy Grovenburg, 
Daniel Hall, 
Job Gardner, 
Peter Prindel, 
Oliver Mattison, 
John Quimby, 
Story Cuitiss, 
Betheiiel Greenfield, 
Timothy Bachelder, 
Stephen Richmond, 
Cyrus Coy, 
Noah Sweet, 
William Lewis, 
Charles Lee, 
Abijah Smith, 
Nicholas Prine, 
Roswell Osborne, 
Ezekiel Lee. 



1812. 

Thomas Hause, 
Calvin Weed, * 
Pliineas White, 
Barney Carpenter, 
Thomas Fisher, 
Abner Chase, 
Nathaniel Rogers, 
Dewey Miller, 
Ezra Sanford, 
George Holt, 
Roswell Maij", 

1813. 

Elisha Smith, Jr., 

Solomon Bishop, 

Lemuel P. HaU, 

Ephraim Whipple, 

Lodowick Wright, 

Chester BiUs, 

Ezekiel Allen, 

EU Whelon, 

Jolm Lake, 

Ephraim Van Valkenburg, 

Jesse Carter, 

Daniel Reese, 

Davis Ingals, 

1814. 

Elijah Andrus, 
Peleg Sisson, 
Solomon Carpenter, 
Asa Lake, 
Johathan Byam, 
Arrod Kent, 

1815. 

William Allen, 
Ezekiel Allen, 
William Jones, 
Joel Bronson, 
Ebenezer Penigo 
Zimri Perrigo, 
Oliver Page, 
WUliam P. Gibbs 
Ebenezer Gibbs, 
Elijah Macknard, 
Levi Dudley, 
David Leadman, 
Wm. Alexander, 
Joseph Parks, 
Allen Sears, 
Amos Salmon, 
Anson Morgan, 
Stephen Eastman 
Jacob Amen, 
Robert Owen, 
Darius Ingalls, 
Jesse Munson, 



Cyrus Hood, 
Sanford Main, 
William Burnham, 
Elisha Beutley, 
William D. Dudley, 
Lemuel Cone, 
John Cone, 
Samuel Alger, 
Abner Hopkins, 
John Palmer, 
Hem-y Van Wormer. 



Samuel Rundal, 
Henry L. Gould, 
David Ghdden, 
Stephen Martin, 
Eddy Emmons, 
William Stiveback, 
David Church, 
Chauncey Hood, 
Aaron Thompson 
Levi Preston, 
Gideon Baldwin, 
Van Kirk. 



Eldridge Farwell 
Daniel R. Stai-ks, 
John Love, 
Jii-as Hopkins, 
Hoi-ace Balcom, 
Samuel Mansfield. 



Samuel Day, 
Nathan Crandal, 
David Hutchinson 
Isaac Leach, 
Robert Clark, 
Benjamin Allen 
David Wait, 
Abel Wooster, 
David Jones, 
Nathaniel Brown, 
Theopilus Randal, 
Enos Cochran, 
Henry W. Bates, 
Benjamin Morse, 
Amos Randall, 
John Augur, 
Stephen Randall, 
David Jones, 
Levi Stephens, 
Joseph Weed, 
Asel Balcom, 
Hooker Sawyer. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 569 

BRIGHTON. 



The township was an early pioneer locality, as will have been 
seen in preceding pages, though its settlement made but slow 
progress; but an occasional settler coming in previous to 1816. 
The town which then embraced what is now Brighton and Ironde- 
quoit was organized in 1814. Oliver Culver was the first supervisor, 
Nehemiah Hopkins, town clerk. Other town officers: — Orange 
Stone, Ezekiel Morse, Solomon Gould, Sylvester Cowles, John 
Hatch, Jessee Taintor, Ezra Rogers, Rufus Messenger, Enos Blos- 
som, Samuel SpafFord, David Bush, Enos Stone, Job C. Smith, Wm. 
Billinghurst. There were but three road districts in the town ; the 
overseers were, Rufus Messenger, Wm. Moore, Solomon Gould, 
James Suffield, Joseph Caldwell. By records transferred from old 
town books of Northfield, it would seem that as early as 1802 a 
road was laid " from Tryon Square, to Genesee River near King's 
Landing." In 1801 a road was surveyed " from Irondequot Falls 
intersecting a road from Glover Perrin's to Irondequoit Landing." 
In 1800 a road from mouth of river to intersection of road near 
"Thomas' in Landing Town." In 1800 a road "from centre of 
Main street in the city of Tryon, to the road leading from Orange 
Stone's to the Genesee River." In same year, a road leading "frorri 
centre of road leading by Hollands and IngersoU's to Irondequoit 
Landing." Same year, " from Rattle-snake Spring to the Genesee 
River, opposite the old mill." Same year, a road " from a stake and 
stone, south of Allan's creek, to Irondequoit Landmg. In 1810 a 
road " beginning at the new bridge, Genesee river Falls, till it in- 
tersects a road near Mr. Wilder's in West Town." As late as 1816, 
ilO was voted for wolf scalps. In that year there was five school 
districts in the town. Same year, Elisha Ely, Oliver Culver, Otis 
Walker, Ebenezer Bingham and Ezekiel Morse, were appointed 
as a committee to petition the "General Assembly," for money to 
be laid out on the road from " Orange Stone's to the Genesee River." 
In 1817 Daniel D.Tompkins had 29 votes for Governor, Rufus 
King 42. In that year Elisha Ely was supervisor. 

The first settled minister in Brighton was the Rev. Solomon 
Allen, as early as 1817. He was the father of S. & M. Allen, the 
well known brokers in New York ; a faithful minister and an ex- 
cellent man, as many well remember. His first meetings were 
held at private houses. He remained five years, and would receive 
no salary. He died in the city of New York in 1820, aged 70 
years. 

Enos Blossom was the Pioneer of the numerous family of that 

name, that has been so closely identified with the history of the 

town ; emigrating previous to, or during the war of 1812. He was 

from Cape Cod, Mass. He died in 1830, aged 51 years. George 

36 



570 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

Blossom, of Brighton, and Noble Blossom, of Marshall, Mich., are his 
sons ; daughters became wives of Marshfield Parsons, of Brighton, 

and Aldrich, of Marshall, Michigan. Ezra Blossom, an uncle 

of Enos, came to Brighton in 1818, purchasing the Spaftord farm, 
upon which the village of Brighton has since grown up. He opened 
the first tavern there; died in 1820, aged Gl years. His only sur- 
viving son is Benjamin B. Blossom, Post Master of Brighton; 
daughters became the wives of Ansel House, one of the pioneer 
attorneys of Rochester, Wm. C. Bloss, of Rochester, and Levi 
Hoyt, of Brighton. 

Dr. Gibbs was the first settled physician in Brighton ; Ira West 
the first merchant. 



CHILI. 



A small portion of Chili, was an early settled locahty, next to 
Wheatland, in all the south western portion of Monroe county. 
When the pioneers had settled down in " West Pulteney," " Fair- 
field," and on the Gore " in now Parma, they called it going out of 
the woods when they went to the " Hannover settlement." This 
settlement was along on the old Braddock's Bay road, projected by 
Mr. Williamson, in " East Pulteney, now Chili ; the first settlers, 
principally from Hannover, N. Hampshire. There were of them 
the elder Mr. Widener, his sons, Jacob, Abraham, William, and 

Peter ; Jacob still survives ; the Sottle family, Joseph Gary, 

Wood, and his sons Lemuel and Joseph ; Joshua Howell, who wat^ 
an early Justice of the peace; Samuel Scott, of Scottsville, Benja- 
min Bowen, and the Franklin family. The names of early settlers 
on the River, have occurred in other connections. With the ex- 
ception of a small portion, the town was late in settling, owing to 
difficulties in land titles, which kept the lands out of market, but as 
a whole, its superior soil has been enabling it to overtake its neigh- 
boring towns in the march of improvement. 

John Chapman became a resident of the town in 1804. He had 
been preceded two years by his son Israel Chapman, who still sur- 
vives. The elder Chapman opened the road from the Hannover 
settlement, to his location on Chestnut Ridge. In 1807 he had the 
contract from Mr. Wadsworth for opening the State road, from 
the site of Rochester to Ogden ; the primitive opening consisting 
only of "turning out the logs," and under- brushing. In 1808 he 
opened a road from where he settled in Chili, to the Rapids. He 
had removed from Phelps, and returning there in about two years 
he remained there until his death, at the advanced age of 80 years. 
Israel Chapman, of Chili, Julius Chapman, of Riga, and Joel Chap- 



PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 571 

man, of Macedon, are his sons ; otlier sons reside at the west ; 
Mrs. Wm. Peer, of Chih is a daughter. 

Isaac Lacy, though a late comer, was for many years a prominent 
citizen of the town ; an enterprising and successful farmer. He 
emigrated from Washington county in 1816, and in process of time 
became possessed of a farm of near 1000 acres ; 600 of which he 
cultivated. He died in 1844. aged 68 years. He was a member of 
Assembly from IMonroe for two terms, and subsequently a member 
of the Senate. His surviving sons are Allen T. Lacy, near Mar- 
shall, Michigan ; John T. Lacy, clerk of Monroe county ; Edward 
P. and Isaac Lacy, of Janesville, Wisconsin. Daughters isecame 
the wives of Ira Carpenter, of Scottsville ; R. M. Long, of Buffalo; 
Dr. John Mitchell of Janesville ; and H. H. Smith, of Union city, 
Michigan. There was in all, a familv of eleven children. 



CHAPTER III. 



EARLY GLIMPSES OF THE GENESEE VALLEV PIONEER HISTORY OF 

ROCHESTER. 



In all we have of the history of French occupancy of Western 
New York, but kw allusions are made to the immediate valley of 
the Genesee ; and yet there are distinct evidences that there were 
Jesuit Missionary and French tradei's located upon it ; and such 
may well be the inference, as within it were some of the principal 
seats of the Senecas. Soon after the advent of La Salle, a trading 
post and missionary station was founded upon the Niagara, a few 
miles above the Falls. In the Jesuit letters there are several allu- 
sions to another one, with which those who occupied the first, were 
in frequent communication, upon the "River of the Tsonnontouans," 
(the river of the Senecas.) * While La Salle was building his ves- 
sel at the mouth of the Cayuga creek, he sent embassies over land, 
to reconcile the Senecas to his enterprise ; and the vessel he had 
built at Frontenac, coasted along the south shore of Lake Ontario 

* The communication was by water, and yet not by the Niagara river and Lake 
Ontario. Strange as it may now seem, batteanx ascended the Tonawanda, were car- 
ried over a short portage into the Tonawanda swamp, and descended by the waters 
of Black creek to the Genesee river ! That there had once been such an internal 
navigation, Mr. Ellicott was in some way apprized, and that suggested to Iiim his fa- 
vorite route fcr the Erie Canal, a partial survey of which was made. 



5Y2 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

and entere 1 the Genesee River, the first craft of European architec- 
ture, in all probability, that ever disturbed its waters. The Baron 
La Hontan, who accompanied the expedition of De Nonville, gave 
some account of the River, and laid it down upon the map that 
accompanied the first publication of his "Voyages to North Amer- 
ica," in London, 1703. There are other maps in which the River 
is recognized, of even earlier date. Views of the upper and lower 
Falls were published in London in 1768. Upon them, the river is 
called, " Casconchiagon, or Little Senecas' River." [The term 
little, must have been in comparison with Niagara river.] Joncaire, 
who is introduced in the body of the work, was familiar with the 
whole region, and gave to Charlevoiz, in 1723, a very intelligible 
description of the Genesee River. English occupancy of western 
New York, was comparatively of but short duration, and there 
seems to have been no occupancy of the immediate valley of the 
Genesee. In Governor Burnett's time, there was an English trading 
house, and a few soldier's at the " Bay of Tyrondequoit," but little 
is said of it. It was probably soon abandoned, as the Senecas were 
far more jealous of English than of French occupancy. The Rev. 
Mr. Kirkland visited this region in 1705, and during all the period 
of English occupancy, there were English traders on Seneca Lake, 
the Genesee and the Niagara rivers. When the Revolutionary 
war commenced, the Genesee valley, as will be observed, began 
soon to be the temporary abiding place of refugees from the Mo- 
hawk, the Susquehannah and New Jersey ; the chief among them, 
the ruling spirit, the " lord of the valley," being Ebenezer, or Indian 
Allan ; the solitary occupant upon the River, below the mouth of 
Allan's creek, one of his liege subjects, Jacob Walker. 



THE FALLS OF THE GENESEE AND THEIR IMMEDIATE VICINITY DELAY 

IN SETTLEMENT AND IMPROVEMENT THE IMMEDIATE AND 

REMOTE CAUSES. 



Truly it may be observed, that with reference to the pioneer his- 
tory of all this region, a reversal of the ordinary arrangement is in- 
dicated by the course of events, and the first becomes last. The 
site of the "City of the valley of the Genesee," — the com- 
mercial and general business emporium, of all the region that we 
have been traveUing over — was a wilderness, almost unbroken, a 
bye place, in homely phrase, for long years after settlements were 
founded in almost the entire Genesee country. When Buffalo, 
Batavia, Canandaigua, Geneva, Palmyra, Penn Yan, Bath, Gen- 
eseo, Caledonia and Le Roy, had became considerable villages, and 
local business had began to centre at Pittsford, Penfield, Victor, 



PHELPS AM) GORHAJVl's PURCHASE. 5Yo 

Lyons, Vienna, Manchester East Bloomfield, Lima, Avon, Dans- 
ville, Angelica, Warsaw, Attica, Lewiston, Oak Orchard, Gaines, 
Ciarkson, Parma, Cliarlotte, Handford's Landing and Scottsville, 
sufficient to form little clusters of stores, machine shops and dwell- 
ings — there was at "Genesee Falls," now Rochester, but a rude 
mill and a few rude dwellings, less than twenty acres of the forest 
cleared away, and less than a half dozen families. 

The reader whose interest and patience have both held out thus 
far, to keep along with the narrative, has had occasional ghmpses 
of the site of Rochester, but has seen little as there was but little to 
see ; or rather has read little of it, for the reason that it has not 
been before reached in the order of lime. It was late in attracting 
the attention of men of enterprise, founders of settlements and vil- 
lages. Now when its superior advantages are so obvious, when it 
has become a large and populous city, with those not familiar with 
the early history of the country, surprise is created that it was not 
one of the primitive theatres of investment and enterprise. In the 
first place, it may be observed, that there was a long series of 
years, after the settlement of the Genesee country commenced, 
when the Pioneers in detached settlements in the forest, were 
subduing the soil, and obtaining from it but barely the means of 
subsistence; in the most favored localities but a small surplus 
which was required by the new comers that were dropping in from 
year to year around them ; there was little necessity for market 
places, or commercial depots, Rapids upon the small streams ex- 
isted in almost every neighborhood and settlement, upon which rude 
mills were erected, sufficient for all the then existing requirements. 
The extensive hydraulic power created by the Rapids and the Falls 
of the Genesee, was not put in requisition, because there was no 
occasion for it. Rochester, of itself, in its steady permanent growth, 
demonstrates the fact, that villages and cities should follow the gen- 
eral improvements of a country which is to be tributary to them, 
and not precede them. It sprung up when it was required, kept 
pace with the growth and improvement of the whole country — and 
a rapid marchlt had to make to do so — and thence its permanence 
and substantial character. 

The territory bordering upon the shore of Lake Ontario, in the 
entire Genesee country, with few exceptions, did not attract settlers 
in all the earliest years. There was little of Lake conimerce, and 
travel, transportation and business, centered upon the main thorough- 
fare, the old Buffiilo road. It is a far greater wonder that at a peri- 
od when good roads was the great desideratum, when upon all ordin- 
ary soils they could not be made ; when even the main Buffiilo road, 
after there liad been expended upon it a vast amount of labor, was 
in most seasons of the year almost impassable, — that such a con- 
tinuous national highway as was the Ridge road, was not opened 
and travelled ; than that the Falls of the Genesee were not earlier 



574 PHELPS AND GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

improved. There was never, in the earliest period, any misapprehen- 
sion of the intrinsic value of the soil in all this northern region of the 
Genesee country. The Pioneers were aware of the fact, now so clear- 
ly demonstrated by time and experience, that from the Pennsyl- 
vania line, northward to the shores of Lake Ontario, there was a 
gradual improvement in the face of the country, and in all the ele- 
ments of successful agriculture ; but along on the Lake shore, in 
the whole distance from Sodus Bay to Fort Niagara, there was a 
v/ide belt of dense dark forest, the soil mostly wet ; its whole aspect 
repulsive and forbidding. It was penetrated in the earhest years by 
but few, and those as may well be conceded, the boldest of the Pio- 
neers. First, Mr. Williamson, attracted by the beautiful Bay of 
Sodus, by its fine building ground, and its prospective commercial 
importance, broke in there, and accompanying extraordinary enter- 
prise with a liberal expenditure of capital, made a iailure of it, and 
years of decline, and almost desertion, followed. Then two hardy 
Pioneers set themselves down on the Lake shore, between Sodus and 
Pulteneyville ; (Brown and Richards.) Previous to this however, 
the Lusks, Hydes, Timothy Allyn, Orange Stone, the Scudders, and 
a few others had located upon an inviting spot in Brighton, near the 
head of the Irondequoit Bay. Then followed William Hencher, 
at the mouth of the Genesee river; then the Atchinsons and a few 
others, formed an isolated and lonesome settlement at the head of 
Braddock's, (Prideaux's) Bay. Then James Walworth, Elijah 
Brown, (the same who had settled below Pulteneyville,) Elisha 
Hunt, the De Graws, Lovell, Marsh, Parmeter, Dunham, the Grif- 
fiths and others, located at Oak Orchard ; and soon after, openings 
in the forest began to be made in the vicinity of Fort Niagara, as 
low down as the^Four Mile creek. Following these pioneer advents, 
other adventurers were " few and far between ; " they were in a 
few localities in Niagara, along on the Ridge in Orleans, in Clark- 
son, Ogden, Bergen,lliga, Chill, Greece, Penfield, Macedon. Wal- 
worth,"Marion, and along on the road from Sodus to Lyons. When 
little neighborhoods had been formed in all these detached localities, 
disease came into the openings of the forest, about as fast as they 
were made. Often families, and sometimes almost entire neigh- 
borhoods were carried into the older and healthier localities, upon 
ox sleds and carts, through wood's roads, to be nursed and cared for. 
Through long years this operated not unlike the carrying of the dead 
and wounded from a battle field into the presence of those whose aid 
is required to renew and maintain the strife. It was but little less 
appaling and discouraging. The whole region now immediately 
under consideration was sickly in all the early years, and upon that 
account, and for other reasons, was slow in settling. All the region 
around the Falls of the Genesee, at the mouth of the river, at King's 
Landing, (as the reader has observed and will observe,) was regar- 
ded as prolific in the seeds of disease — of chills and fevers — almost, 



PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 575 

as are the Pontine marshes of the old world, and the passes of the 
Isthmus on the route to California. A single instance may be sta- 
ted in this connection, in addition to what will appear elsewhere : 
— In an early year, previous to 1800, Wheelock Wood, a pioneer 
in Lima, built a saw mill on Deep Gulley creek, within the present 
city limits of Rochester, had it in operation but one season, carried 
back to Lima, his workmen, prostrated by disease ; and was finally 
obliged to abandon his enterprise, and let his mill go to decay, for 
the reason tliat workmen could not be found who would incur the 
exposure to disease consequent upon the care of it. 

The causes that have been cited are quite sufficient to account 
for the late start of Rochester ; to explain to the readers of the pre- 
sent day, why valuable hydraulic privileges, in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of shipping ports of Lake Ontario, were so long principally 
shrouded by the primeval forest, after settlement had approached 
and almost surrounded the locaFity. To these causes the reader 
may add what he has already observed, of the tendency of things 
toward the main thoroughfare, the Buffalo Road, in early years ; 
and the fact, that quite up to the period of the start of Rochester, 
the commercial enterprize and expectation of a large settled portion 
of the Genesee country was turned in the direction of the head waters 
of the Allegany and Susquehannah. 

The year 1811, that being the year in which Col. Rochester, first 
surveyed and sold lots on the one hundred acre tract, may be regarded 
as the starting period of Rochester, though in reference to any con- 
siderable movement, accession of population and business, the years 
1815, or '16 would perhaps be indicated. The first period named, 
preceding but a few months, another important event in our local his- ' 
tory, the war of 1812 — some account of the then general condition 
of the Genesee country, will not be out of place : — Commencing with 
the Pioneer region, the territory now comprised in the county of 
Ontario, improvements were considerably advanced. Generally, 
the soil there was more easily subdued, and made more speedy re- 
turns for labor expended, than the more heavily timbered lands that 
predominated elsewhere. There were many framed houses and 
barns, bearing orchards, largely improved farms, and good public 
highways. The territory had began to have a large surplus of pro- 
ducts, which principally found a market in the later settled regions, 
south and west. There may be included in this description a small 
portion of the present counties of Wayne, Livingston and Yates. 
In nearly all the northern portion of Wayne county settlement was 
recent, and but small improvements had been made. In Living- 
ston the considerable improvements were principally confined to the 
flats of the Genesee and Canascraga, the Buffalo road, Livonia, 
Conesus, Groveland and Sparta. A large portion of Allegany was 
a wilderness ; there were but few recent and feeble settlements. The 
older settlements in Steuben had began to produce a small surplus, 



5t6 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

which, with its lumber, was shipped upon the head waters of the 
Susquehannah, for the Baltimore market; but most of the county 
was either a wilderness, or sparsely populated. 

West of the Genesee River, the lands along the Buffalo road were 
principally settled, and many large improvements had been made. 
The principal public houses were along on that road ; it was the 
central locality ; those who lived away from that were in the back- 
woods, or interior ; there they gloried in some very respectable 
framed tavern houses ; " double log" tavern houses prevailed to the 
south and north of it. In Wyoming, there were settlements and 
considerable improvements along on the old " Big Tree" road, the 
Tonawanda and Allan's creek ; elsewhere the Pioneers were in 
small isolated settlements, with wide belts of forests intervening. 
Cattaraugus had been broken into in but kw localities, principally 
along on the Cattaraugus creek, the Ischua, and the Allegany River. 
Chautauque and the south towns of Erie had considerable settle- 
ments, principally along near the lake shore, and in the interior, on 
Chautauque Lake, and on the old " Big Tree" road. The settle- 
ments in all the northern portion of Erie, were along on the Buffalo 
road, and between that and the Seneca Reservation. In Niagara, 
settlement was principally confined to the Niagara River, the Ridge 
Road, and along on the narrow strip between the Ridge Road and 
Mountain Ridge. Orleans was mostly a wilderness, with but little 
in the way of improvement off from the Ridge Road, and in but few 
localities upon it. The Ridge Road in its whole extent, from the 
Genesee to the Niagara River, had but just been opened, a large 
portion of it was butan underbrushed woods road, with only a part of 
the streams having over them even rude log bridges. In short, in 
all the region between the Genesee River and the west bounds of 
the State, off from the main east and we-t road, there was but isola- 
ted neighborhoods and detached famlies, settlement had mostly 
commenced within the preceding six years. There was not fifty 
framed dwellings, nor over an hundred framed barns ; fifty acres 
was deemed a large improvement, much above the average. 

The condition of the territory now comprised in Monroe, may be 
inferred from the history of settlement that has been given. 

During the war, there was no increase of population in the whole 
region — as many left the country as came to it — a very large 
proportion of the effective men were upon the frontier, and alarm 
and apprehension paralyzed all of industry and enlerprise. With 
reference to the period of 1812, Rochester had an untoward com- 
mencement ; and with reference to the latter period — 1815 and '16 
— it started w^hen the whole region with which it had a local iden- 
tity, had but passed its infancy, — when after acquiring a little 
strength and manhood, prostration and weakness had followed, from 
which it was just recovering. 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 57 T 

THE FIRST BLOW STRUCK ON THE SITE OF ROCHESTER THE 

ALLAN MILL REMINISCENCES OF EVENTS TO 

THE CLOSE OF THE WAR OF 1812. 



It was soon after Mr. Phelps had concluded his treaty, that he 
sold or gave to Ebenezer Allan the One Hundred Acre Tract, upon 
which he erected his rude mills. The mills were in operation be- 
fore the close of 1790, or rather were in readiness to saw and grind 
when there was anything to do. The measure on the part of Allan 
was premature ; when the grist mill was completed, there was not 
in all the region west of the old Pre-emption line, 1500 of our race ; 
and with the exception of the flats upon the Genesee and Canascraga, 
and a few small Indian improvements elsewhere, not 1000 acres of 
cleared land. As settlements increased, small mills were erected in 
other localities, leaving the Allan mills at the Falls of the Genesee, 
surrounded as they mostly were by an unsettled wilderness, but little 
to do. A miller was usually kept with them, the solitary occupant 
of all the now site of Rochester, but he had usually not employment 
enough to enable him to keep the mill in repair. Sometimes there 
would be no miller — the whole premises would be deserted — and 
in seasons of drouth, or when the small mills at Mendon, Wilder's 
Point, and at Conesus, would be out of repair, the new settlers would 
come down the Genesee River in canoes, upon Indian trails, or via 
the early woods road that came from Pittsford to Orange Stone's in 
Brighton, and to avoid the low vvet lands that intervened, was carried 
off upon the ridges to the south, coming out upon the river near 
Mount Hope. Arriving at the mill, they would occupy the deserted 
cabin, supply a broken cog, mend a strap, put a bucket upon a wheel 
or a plank upon the floom, and be their own millers. 

The mill and the Hundred Acre Tract was purchased of Allan by 
Benjamin Barton, senior, in March, 1792. The property was soon 
after conveyed by Barton to Samuel Ogden of the city of New 
York. Mr. Ogden being a lawyer, and a far off resident, was not 
likely to improve it, and as early as 1791 conveyed it to Charles 
Wilfiamson. The next year Mr. Williamson put the property under 
the care of Col. Fish, and expended upon it about #500. But still 
there was a want of business for it, and in all the time that elapsed, 
during the ownership of Mr. Williamson, it was allowed to go grad- 
ually to decay. While in various other localities, in Sodus, Lyons, 
Geneva, Hopeton, Bath, on the Canascraga, in Caledonia, and to a 
small extent at Braddock's Bay, he was prosecuting enterprises, 
founding villa";es, and mills, the Falls of the Genesee seems to have 
had no considerable attractions for him. And this together with 
the then isolated condition of the locality in reference to the course 
that settlement was then taking, may furnish the explanation : In all 
expenditures and improvements he had reference to the increasing 



5*78 PHELPS AND goeham's puechase. 

of the value of the property of his principals. All that is now Gates, 
most of Greece, a part of Chili, all of Henrietta, Rush, Mendon, 
Pittsford, Perrinton, Penfield, and Brighton, was not a part of the 
Pulteney estate. The principal interest of his principals in the im- 
mediate vicinity of Rochester, was most of what is now Irondequoit, 
a tract of 4000 acres at the Rapids, and a larger tract in what is 
now Chili. In January, 1802, in a valuation of all the different 
parcels of the Pulteney estate, made by Israel Chapin, Joseph 
Annin, and Amos Hall, the mill and hundred acres, was valued at 
$1,040. 

Following the erection of the mill, the clearing away of a small 
spot of the forest around it, there was in respect to either settlement 
or improvement, an hiatus — an almost total suspension of opera- 
tions — for nearly twenty years ; a period in our present day, more 
than sufficient for settling States, founding new empires, and build- 
ing large cities. 

In all this time the locality, and its immediate vicinity, was not 
lost sight of; it was frequently visited by tourists and men of enter- 
prise."" In 1795, Aaron Burr, — then a large operator in sites of 
towns, in tracts of wild lands, and in a few years after, the owner 
for a short period, of an 100,000 acres of Orleans county, contiguous 
to mouth of Oak Orchard creek — diverged from the old Buffalo road, 
came down and critically examined the Falls, taking measurements 
of them. Adventurers coasting along the Lake shore in batteaux, 
would put into the mouth of the river and survey the Falls, become 
impressed with the value of the location, the magnitude of its hy- 
draulic power; but the dark frowning forests, the low wet lands, 
the malaria they could well fancy they saw floating in the atmos- 
phere, sent them away to other fields of investment and enterprise, 
of far less importance, as time has demonstrated. 

In 179G Zadock Granger, Gideon King and others, as will have 
been observed, formed a" settlement at what afterwards became 
Handford's Landing. These were the first comers upon the river, 
belov/ the mouth of Black creek, (the miller of the Falls excepted,) 
after Wm. Hencher. In writing to his friends in England, Mr. 
Williamson was much disposed to make things quite as forward as 

Note. — In tliis connection the author will make an extract from the manuscript re- 
miniscences of Thomas Moms :—" In June, 1797, Louis PhiUp, the late King of 
France, his two brothers, the Duke de Montpensier, and Count Beaugolais, were my 
j2:iiests at Canandaigua. Being desirous of shewing them the Falls of the Genesee 
Hiver, we rode together to where Rochester now is. There was not at that time ahut 
of any kind. The nearest habitation was that of a farmer by the name of Perrm," 
(Orange Stone he should have said,) " where after viewing the Falls we dined in our 
return to Canandaigua. Notwithstauduig all that I had heard of the progress of Roch- 
ester," (Mr. Morris is now alluding to his visit to the city in 1844,) it was difficult lor 
me to realize that a place that I had last seen, even at that distance of time, an un- 
inhabited wilderness, should now be a busy, active city, containing elegant and costly 
buildings, and with a population, as I was informed there, of between twenty-nve 
and tliirty thousand inhabitants." 



PHELPS AKD GOPvHAJi's PUECHASE. 5Y9 

they were, and to create the impression that the country was going 
ahead pretty rapidly. He announced the advent of these new 
comers, as a matter of considerable importance ; and speaks of the 
commercial enterprise of Mr. Granger, in the same year, as having 
created a new era in this region of the Genesee country. " The 
navigation of the river," says one of his letters, "is interrupted by 
four successive magnificent falls, the higKest of them 9G feet ; 
around these falls a carrying place was made, and the inhabitants 
for the first time began to use the navigation, and they received 
their salt from the CTnondaga salt works, and their stores from Al- 
bany, with a very trifling land carriage, compared to what they 
were before necessitated to undertake from Geneva; and it has 
opened to them a ready market for their produce." 

From the very earliest period of the settlement of the Genesee 
country, there seemed to be a prevalent, vague idea, that a town 
of some consequence was to grow up somewhere in what is now. 
the northern portion of Monroe — neucluses were formed, prelim- 
inarj^ steps taken to start villages and commercial depots — but the 
sites, or locations, were for a long period fluctuating. There are 
within nine miles of Rochester, within the precincts of the over 
shadowing city — the sites of no less than five embryo villages, or 
towns, gone to decay — or rather, are either converted into highly 
cultivated farms, or have become principally the eligible sites of 
private dwellings ; and this, without including Frankfort — at first 
assuming rather an independent existence — but having now but 
little separate identity ; having long ago been merged in the city 
that is now travelling on, on, beyond it, with rapid strides. 

Soon after the completion of the surveys of Phelps and Gorham's 
Purchase, the late Augustus Porter, mapped the whole territory, 
carefully disignating the localities where villages and mills either 
were or were likely to be. He makes no mark or sign of civiliza- 
tion, on the river, below " Hartford," (Avon,) except at the Allan 
mill, and upon the afterwards site of Carthage, is printed, " Athens." 
This would lead to the conclusion that the earliest proprietors of 
the region, (even before the advent of Mr. Williamson,) had desig- 
nated that as their favorite locality. Eligible and beautiful as the 
site now is, it must have been in that early day, a most unpropi- 
tious spot, to introduce a name associated with the highest degrees 
of civilization in the old world. But let this reminiscence remind 
the dwellers there, that they are treading upon classic ground. 
" Tryon Town," in now Brighton, on the " Eutauntuquet* Bay," 
was the next favorite locality ; where, as will have been observed, 
a town was projected and commenced, and for many early years 
was the focus of business for a wide region of log cabins and wood's 
roads ; — a shipping port, withal. Then succeeded "King's" and 

* Vide, Judge Porter's Map. 



580 PHELPS AND GORHMIS' PUECHASE. 

"Handford's Landings; then "Charlotte;" and next, (or perhaps 
in earlier years,) " Castle Town." All but the " oldest inhabitants" 
will have to be told where "Castle Town" was : — It was upon the 
west side of the river, at the Rapids, near the division line of Gates 
and Chili. Mr. Wadsworth owned lot 47, the south east corner lot 
of Gates, embracing the upper part of the Rapids, and the Pulteney 
estate, lots 12, 24, and 36 of the "4,000 acre tract," contiguous and 
below, embracing the lower part of the Rapids. The whole being 
under Mr. Wadsworth's control, as owner and agent, during the 
long years that the site of Rochester was left unimproved, he con- 
ceived the idea of founding a village there, it being the foot of nav- 
igation on the Genesee river, and the head of the portage from 
the navigable waters of the river below the Falls. A town was 
surveyed, some lots sold, a store and tavern house erected, and a 
few families settled there ; among whom w^as Isaac Castle ; and 
thence the name. Rochester starting up, and soon after, a diver- 
sion of the water power being made by the Canal Feeder, there was 
an end of " Castle Town." 

After the pioneer commercial enterprise of Mr. Granger, a con- 
siderable period elapsed before other vessels were built. The one 
schooner, with such as dropped in at the mouth of the river for 
freight, hailing from other ports, was probably found sufficient, pre- 
vious to 1800. Augustus and Peter B. Porter, built a schooner up- 
on Irondequoit Bay, and for several years the commerce was divi- 
ded between the Bay and the River, In 1808 or '9, Erastus Spauld- 
ing built a schooner at the mouth of the river, and in 1811, Oliver 
Culver built one upon the Irondequoit Bay. The Lake commerce 
had commenced with pot and pearl ashes for the Montreal market, 
to which was soon added small amounts of flour and wheat, salt 
from the Onondaga salt works ; and at a later period, butt staves. 
A small commerce, upon the River and Bay, seems almost to have 
been forcing itself in the earliest years. The navigation of the 
Susquehannah was fluctuating, tedious and expensive. The boat- 
ing from Lyons, Geneva and Seneca Falls, had been almost aban- 
doned ; transportation of produce, overland, upon the Albany road, 
impracticable to any considerable extent, except when good winter 

Note. — Sometliing of Charlotte will be found in detached portions of the work ; 
but any especial notice of one who was early identified with the locality, has been 
omitted. Andrew M'Nabb, emigrated from Scotland in 1806. Well educated, and 
unused to the labor of clearing new lands, he spent a considerable time with Alexan- 
der M'Pherson, of Le Roy, under an aiTangement that he should be the teacher of his 
children, and in turn should bo taught himself the rudiments of Pioneer labor. Soon 
however, he attracted the attention of Mr. Stoddard, and was employed in his land 
office ; from which he was transferred to the otfice of James Wadsworth. Under the 
auspices of Messrs. Troup and Wadsworth, - he was estabhshed at Charlotte as early 
as 180!) with a stock of goods, and as a local land agent, where he remained until the 
occur; ence of the war of 1812, when he removed to Geneva, where he died, a bachelor, 
previous to 1830. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUKCHASE. 581 

roads occurred ; Lake ports and Lake commerce, began by slow 
degrees to be the creation of exigency and necessity. In a letter 
from James Wadsvvorth to John Murray & Sons, N. Y., dated in 
June 1807, he observes that Mr. Penfield has been to Upper Can- 
ada, and while there had became impressed with the commercial 
advantages of that county ; " a barrel of pot ash can be sent from 
there to "^Montreal for $1 00; wheat commands cash, and a much 
higher price than in this State, from the fact of facility of transpor- 
tation." " These facts," adds Mr. W., " serve to illustrate the im- 
portance of ' Fall Town,' (Rochester,) and of the country in its 
vicinity. Articles can be sent at somewhat less expense from the 
mouth of Genesee river, than from the west end of Lake Ontario. 
At present our communication with Kingston and Montreal is attend- 
ed with unnecessary embarrassment. Montreal must become an 
immense deposit for agricultural productions seeking an European 
market. I could now purchase to be delivered at Fall Town, 10,000 
bushels of wheat at 50 cents. It could then be ground and sent to 
Montreal for 75 cents per barrel. Our field ashes which are now. 
wasted, would be an object of considerable consequence. Fifteen 
tons might be made in the small town of Fairfield this season. The 
business once started, the example would be followed by many. 
The ashes which can be scraped olTfrom an acre after a good burn, 
are worth from $4 to $8. I imagine there will he 200,000 bushels 
of surplus wheat in this part ot'the State, west of a line beyond 
which wheat cannot be sent to Albany, at the price it now com- 
mands." 

In July of the same year, Mr. Wadsvvorth wrote to Samuel Corp, 
N. Y. : — Grain here will not command money at any price. The 
Nortons are sending flour to Albany at a certain loss of $1 50 per 
barrel. Money hardly circulates among us. Farmers who have 
four or five hundred bushels of grain on hand, are paying premiums 
for a few dollars, that would astonish you." * * # ^ 

* " A tract of country extending from Utica to Lake Erie, 
and from Lake Ontario forty or fifty miles southward ; (a tract twice 
as large as the State of Connecticut,) is in a rapid progress to a 
tolerable state of cultivation. The agricultural products of this 
district cannot be transported to Albany ,"except in years of scarcity. 
They must generally be sent to Baltimore or Montreal. The com- 
munication to Baltimore is only open from three to four weeks in 
the spring. This river is undoubtedly a great benefit to the coun- 
try, especially to the inhabitants on its banks, who can seize the fa- 
vorable opportunity for pushing oflf their arks. But in my opinion 
the St. Lawrence is the natural out-let for the produce of this coun- 
try. Lake Ontario is navigable in all seasons of the year. Boats 
maybe sent down the St. Lawrence, almost eight months in the 
year.. Restrictions to trade with Canada, embarrass every thing 
Free trade would be a mutual advantage." Mr. W., in the same 



582 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PURCHASE. 

letter urges Mr. Corp, to " correspond with friends in London upon 
this subject." 

As early as March, 1810, Silas 0. Smith emigrated from N. 
Malborough, Mass., and became a pioneer merchant at Handford's 
Landing. He is one of the few survivors of that early period ; has 
lived to witness the primitive start and entire growth of Rochester, 
and with a physical and mental constitution unimpaired, has but 
partially retired from the active duties of life. He is the father of 
L. Ward Smith, late a representative in Assembly from Monroe 
county, now acting Adjt. General of the State ; of George Hand 
Smith, M. D. of Rochester; and of E. Meigs Smith, of Rochester. A 
daughter is the wite of Samuel Stevens, of Albany ; and there are 
two unmarried daughters. 

Mr. Smith has obligingly furnished the author with his recollec- 
tions of the early times, which are used in the form adopted in other 
instances. 



REMINISCENCES OF SILAS 0. SMITH. 



When I came to the country, the whole region was but sparsely settled. 
About the Upper and Lower Landing, the forests were but little broken. 
Where the city of Rochester now stands, it was a dense forest, save about 
half an acre of cleared ground, around the old Allan mill. In the spring 
of 1813, I built the first store in what was then called " Rochesterville." 
It was a wooden structure, and stood next north of the Rochester Bank, on 
Exchange street. In 1814, I cleared three or four acres of ground on 
which the Court House, St. Luke's church, First Presbyterian church, and 
school house No. 1, now stand. I sowed it to wheat, and had a fine crop; 
the harvesting cost me nothing, as it was most effectually done by the 
squirrels, coons, and other wild beasts of the forest. Scarcely three years, 
however, had elapsed before this ground was mostly occupied with build- 
ings, throuo'h the liberal policy of Col. Rochester, the acting proprietor. 

"The war of 1812 to '15, checked the growth and enterprise of the young 

;jJoTE. — Such were the emban-assnients, such the speculations and anticipations in 
those early years. By hardy enterprise the forest liad been so far cleared away, tlie 
soil so far siibdued, that a surplus began to be produced ; something to reward toil, to 
he exchanged for the necessaries and comforts of life, where there had been long years 
of privation and endurance ; but the isolated condition of the country, the want of 
avenues to market, forbid the fruition so well earned and so long delayed. What an 
event was hidden in the womb of speedily coming time ! But a few weeks previous 
to the date of the first letter of Mr. Wadsworth. a citizen of the Genesee country — 
(and honored be his memory !) — oppressed by pecuniary misfortune, a refugee from 
inexorable creditors, in an obscure village in Pennsylvania, had projected, and ready 
for denoument, the plan for the connection of the waters of Lake Erie and the Hud- 
^^on, by means of an Overland Canal ! That great remedy for the formidable evil 
that was paralyzing industry in all this fail' and fertile region ; that great and diffusive 
dispenser of the wealth, comfort and luxury that meet us at every hand, whether we 
are surveying our own Western New York, or travelling through that Empire of the 
West, where the influence has been scarcely less potent ! (J;^" See 2d or 3d edition of 
" Holland Purchase," appendix. 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 583 

village. The rumors of border warfare, and frequent turn-outs to meet the 
enemy, interfered much to interrupt its quiet progress. It was not until 
the peace of 1815 that the village may be said to have fairly commenced 
its growth; which from half a dozen families, now numbers 40,000 inhabi- 
tants. 

In 1810, when at the Landing with a store of goods, I was often asked 
by travellers who threaded their way through the narrow paths of the 
forest, how I found sufficient customers to warrant any business enterprize. 
But people came there from a distance of even 100 miles with their teams 
and loads of pot ash to sell and exchange for their supplies. 

Charlotte and Handford's Landing had just began to contend for the 
ascendancy, when the war and fevers settled the contest, and located the 
village at Rochester; when the great Falls, with their extensive water 
privileges, together with a fertile and healthy country, opened a field quite 
worthy of its enterprising Pioneers; and did time, space, and recollections 
of the past admit, I should Hke to do justice to the memory of those active 
and praiseworthy men. For their perseverance and endurance during so 
many privations; I remember them with the highest esteem and honor. 

I would add that Handford's Landing was formerly called King's Land- 
ing. The earliest settlers there were mostly doomed to a death more ter- 
rible than the sword. Prostrated by fevers, there were times when there 
was none left with strength enough to bring water to the parched lips of 
the dying, or afford a decent interment to their remains. Their graves, 
more than twenty in number, could be counted in the woods near by. 

Very rarely a missionary would pass through this wild and lonely region, 
administering the consolations of his faith. Sunday was not at all observ- 
ed. I remember with pleasure, the Rev. Mr. Parmalee, a Prysbeterian, a 
good old man, who passed through and stopped at my house where he 
preached and baptised ; afterwards continuing on for miles to find another 
house and repeat the same services. At the time he was sufi'ering so much 
from ague and fever that he was often obliged to dismount from his horse 
and lay down under a tree until the ague tit had left him, then arise and 
continue on his solitary journey. 

At that early period we had no great partiality for any particular denom- 
ination of christians ; we were sufficiently glad to have any. Very provi- 
dentially I had brought with me three books of Common Prayer; and 
while hving at the Landing, fishing and hunting being the usual occupa- 
tion of many of the new settlers on Sunday; the report of the rifle breaking 
the otherwise " Sabbath stillness of the day" ; I obtained the assistance of 
John Mastirk, and in a small plank school house we commenced the beautiful 
ritual of the Episcopal church ; and on each Lord's day read the prayers and 
a sermon. The plan was perfectly successful, for the services came to bo 
attended from far and wide; and it formed the neucleus afterwards of St. 
Lukes, the largest church in this diocese. These were the first Prayer Books 
and Episcopal services used and held in this section of the country. This 
very small beginning contrasts strangely with the present aspect of the 
various religious societies, and shows that the early settlers of Rochester, 
as well as the present inhabitants, were not entirely neghgent in these mat- 
ters which have had such beneficial influence upon the great prosperity of 
the city. 



584 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 

Charles Harford was an emigrant from England, soon after 1790. 
Among Mr. Williamson's papers, is a letter from him dated in New 
York, in 1794, in which he requests Mr. W. to reserve for him 
4,000 acres near " the Great Sodus" and some " town lots," — says 
he intends to engage "extensively in grazing ; " that he is about to 
start for England to bring out his family. It is presumed that on 
his return from England, (or may be previously,) he had purchased 
an interest in the " 20,000 acre tract," west of the River. The au- 
thor is not informed where he located previous to 1807. In that 
year he became the Pioneer on all the site of Rochester west of the 
river, erecting a block house on what is now State street, near the 
termination of the Lisle road, and making a small opening in the 
forest. He had here allotted to him 100 acres of his interest in the 
20,000 acre tract; besides back farm lots in Gates, upon wiiich in 
early years, he settled several branches of his family. In 1808 he 
had completed a small mill with one run of stones, a little below the 
Falls, conducting the water in a race. This mill tor four years, did 
the grinding for a wide region of backwoods settlers. A saw mill 
soon tbllowed, or it may have preceded the erection of the grist 
mill. Mr. Harford died nearly thirty years since ; of a numerous 
family, possessing at one period a hundred acres of the city of 
Rochester, and about one-twelfth of the town of Gates, the author 
has no information, other than the fact that a son resides in the 
town of Chili, and that other sons and daughters reside in Western 
States. 

After the advent of Charles Haford on the west side of the Riv- 
er, the next was that of Enos Stone, the first settler on the east 
side of the River. jXj^ See page 424. Mr^ Stone's advent was in 
March, 1810. Arriving at the house of his brother Orange with 
his family and effects, he was helped through the woods by him and 
some of his neighbors, and established in his log cabin, the solitary 
occupant of all the present site of Rochester, east of the river. Two 
years previous, Enos Stone the elder had erected a saw mill on the 
river, which had been carried off by a freshet. In October follow- 
ing, needing a little more house room — having occasionally to en- 
tertain a visiter or traveller, Mr. Stone put up a small frame build- 
ing, 16 by 20 feet. The cutting of the timber, raising and enclos- 
ing occupied but three days; — the raising was done by Mr. and 
Mrs. Stone, and a hired man and hired girl.* Mr. Stone saw and 
endured the most rugged features of pioneer life. Getting out of 
provisions, he went out in search of wheat, and passing through 
Pittsford, Mendon, Victor, Bloomfield and Livonia, found not a 
bushel for sale, until he had arrived at Judge Chipman's near Allen's 
Hill, in Pittstown. He remembers with lieelings of gratitude, that 

* The structure of the first frame biiildiDg ever erected upon all the broad site of 
the now city of Rochester, in a tolerable state of preserration, is now occupied as a 
yrood shed, in rear of the dwelling of Wm. Adams, on Elm street. 



PHELPS AKD GOKHAm's PUECHASE. 585 

telling the Judge of his wants, and of the destitution of himself and 
Iiis backwoods neighbors, how readily he gave him a seat at his 
breakfast table, and went out himself and made a levy upon his 
neighbors — getting a bushel of wheat of one, and a bushel of an- 
other ; — and so far as pay was concerned, he would only receive a 
dollar per bushel, less.than the current price. It is with lively recol- 
lections of other and like kind acts, on the part of this early and wor- 
thy pioneer, that the author records this reminiscence. On another 
occasion, being out of meat, Mr. Stone walked out with his rifle, 
and a fine buck just trotting up the bank from the river, where he 
had been to drink, was transferred to the shambles ; — and as oppor- 
tunely it was, as the manna, in another exigency in the world's his- 
tory. 

Isaac W. Stone, who has already been mentioned in connection 
with the invasion at the mouth of the river, in the war of 1812, had 
settled in Bloomfield, establishing a cloth dressing establishment on 
Fish creek, soon after 1800. In 1810 he purchased of Enos Stone 
five acres, opposite Blossom's Hotel, upon a part of which the 
Minerva block now stands ; erected a framed house and opened a 
tavern. There had began to be a little travel on the Ridge Road, 
though the fording of the river was often difficult and dangerous ; 
and settlement it will be observed had commenced on the Ridge. 
His was the only public house in Rochester during the war, was a 
boarding place for several of the early local adventurers — the head 
quarters of all military operations, while the enterprising landlord 
was himself, by virtue of a commission, as well as by pcitriotic im- 
pulses, the active and principal leader in measures of defence. Re- 
turning from the Niagara frontier, in 1813, he was taken ill upon 
the road, and died at the house of Major Isaac Sutherland, near 
Batavia ; much regretted, for he had been active and useful in the 
then trying crisis. An only surviving son became a resident of 
Lockport, was for one term sheriff' of Niagara ; ^ied a few years 
since in Illinois. The eldest daughter, the wife of the Rev. Art.emus 
Bishop, went upon a mission to the Sandwich Islands, in 1827, 
where she still resides. Another daughter became the wife of Ira 
West ; another the wife of the Rev. Wm. F. Curry, now a settled 
minister at Geneva ; and another, the wife of John F. Bush, of 
Rochester. Mrs. Stone, who continued the pioneer tavern for four 
years after her husband's death, still survives, at the age of 76 years, 
a resident of Rochester ; and with the exception of Enos Stone, 
the oldest living resident of the city. 

The first public improvement upon the Genesee River, below 
Avon, was the erection of a bridge upon the present site of Roch- 
ester. In 1809 the Ridge Road began to be regarded prospective- 

JToTE. — Mr. Stone adds, that -when he anived at Zebulon Norton's mill, in Mendon, 
the old geutlemau instead of taking toll, added a bushel. 3 
37 



586 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

ly, as an important thoroughfare, and the citizens of what are now 
the northern towns of Wayne and Monroe, began to make move- 
ments te secure a better crossing of the River, than that of a dan- 
gerous fording place. A petition to the Legislature was put in cir- 
culation, and "favored by the presence at Albany, of both the elder 
and younger Enos Stone, a law was passed for the construction of 
abridge, by means of a tax upon the inhabitants ot Genesee and 
Ontario, at the session of 1809, '10. The measure met with severe 
opposition ; the dwellers along on the Buffldo road, feared the diver- 
sion of travel from that then main thoroughfare, and the local mem- 
bers of the Legislature, were all from that road or south of it, ex- 
cept Judge Rogers, of Palmyra, who gave it his support. Samue 
Lawrence, of what is now Yates county, then a member from On- 
tario, opposed the measure, as imposing an oppressive tax upon those 
who were not to be benefitted by it, as an unnecessary and wild pro- 
ject. In the course of his speech he assumed that the region sur- 
rounding the contemplated improvement, was one frowned upon by 
Providence, and not fit for the residence of man. It is, said he, "in- 
habited by muskrats, visited only by straggling trappers, through 
which neither man nor beast could gallop without fear of starvation, 
or of catching the fever and ague." The bill passed by a close vote ; 
the bridge was commenced in 1810, and finished just after the com- 
mencenient of the war of 1812. The first company of troops that 
marched to Lewiston, passed upon the uncovered timbers. The 
building commissioners were Dr. Zacheus Colby, of Genesee, and 

Caleb Hopkins, of Ontario; the builder, Hovey. The bridge 

soon began to bring travel to the Frontier, upon the northern route, 
and in the absence of the war would have given an impetus to set- 
tlement. 

Little beyond what has been named, transpired upon the east 
side of the River, until the close of the war; but two families were 
added to those of the Messrs. Stones, and they were not permanent 
residents. 

Though Col. Rochester and his associates. Cols. Fitzhugh and 
Carrol, had purchased the Hundred Acre Tract in 1802, it lay idle, 
as it had in long previous years, until the summer of 1811. The 
delay in the improvement of a site so valuable, is sufficiently ac- 
counted for in preceding pages; late as would now seem the com- 
mencement, it was even premature, as the reader will have observed. 
Yet there had began to be an anxiety to see a commencement, the 
Bridge was progressing, public expectation and individual enterprise 
had began to fix upon the tract— the 100 acres, and the hydraulic 



N-QTE. By *)me means or other tlie Bridge matter took a party turn, the then 

democratic members generally voting fur it. The next year it was brought into the 
election canvass, and was the means of defeating the democratic members. That de- 
termined the complexion of the Legislature ; so the fii'st bridge in Kochester, cost the 
democratic party the asctndancy iu the State. 



PUECHASE. 587 

facilities it embraced — as the eligible spot in which all hitherto 
projected business locaHties in its neighborhood, was to become 
merged. In August 1810, Mr. Wadsvvorth, although his interests 
were principally at Charlotte, and Castleton, had probabl}^ become 
convinced that neither was the natural location of the business he 
saw drawing off to the lower valley of the Genesee, towards the 
navigable waters of Lake Ontario ; and in one of the localities, 
sickness had began to discourage him as it had others. At this pe- 
riod, he wrote to Mr. Troup; — "I wish that tract of 100 acres 
could be purchased of the Marylalid gentlemen. The Bridge and 
Mill seat render it very valuable indeed." 

In July, 1810, Col. Rochester came down from his residence at 
Dansville, and surveyed a few lots on the River, along on either 
side of Exchange and Buffalo streets. Having before his return 
home, constituted Enos Stone his local agent, he addressed to him 
the following letter of instructions : — 

Dansville, I4th August, 1811. 

Dear Sir : 

Inclosed I send you a plat of the village of Rochester, at the Falls of 
Genesee River. I have sent on advertisements to the printers at Canandaigua and 
Geneva, mentioning that I have laid out a village, and that you will shew the lots and 
make known the terras on which the lots are to be sold. 

The terms are for lots No. 2, 3, 4, 5, 16, 17, 18, 30, fifty doUars each ; for lots No. 6, 
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, thii-ty doUars. No. 1, two hundred doUars, 
the rest that are numbered are sold. Persons purchasing must build a dwelling house, 
or store house, not less Uian 20 by 16 feet, by the first of October 1812, or the lots 
will revert to the proprietors, and the advance of five dollars be forfeited. Five dollars 
are to be advanced on each quarter acre lot, aud twenty dollars on lot No. 1, the resi- 
due to be paid in two annual payments with interest thereon. If any person wants a 
lot above the head of the race or the River, tell them that I wiU be down in October 
to lay out lots along Mill street up to the river, and these lots can be had for building 
Ware Houses on the River, at fifty dollars for a quarter acre lot. Bridge street, Buffalo 
street. Mill street and Can-oil street, are six rods wide, the other streets are four rods, 
and the Alley's twelve feet. You will observe that lots No. 26, 27, are to be but three 
rods on Bridge street, but extend back more than ten rods, owing to the angle in the 
street. When I go down in October, I shall lay out the streets, alleys and lots agreea- 
ble to the enclosed plat. NATHANIEL ROCHESTER. 

Enos Stone became the purchaser of lot 36 at $50. Other sales 
occurred in the order, and at the pi ices named, commencing Dec. 
29, 1811: — 

Henry Skinner, Lot No 

Hamlet Scranton, " 

Isaac W. Stone, " 

Abraham Starks, " 

David C. Knupp, " 

Amasa Marshall, " 

Apolenus Jerry " 



1, 


$200 


26, 


50 


23, 34, 


100 


20, 


50 


21, 22, 


200 


25, 


50 


32, 


125 



Israel Scrantom, Lot Nc 


.. 18, 19, 


100 


Luscum Knapp, " 


45, 


60 


Hczekiah Noble, " 


5, 


60 


Joseph Hughes, " 


15, 62, 


80 


Ebenezer Kelly, " 


16, 


60 


Ira West, i « 


3, 


30 


« « " It 


50, U5, 


260 



588 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

Elisha Ely, Lot No. 39, 40, 41, 133, $360 Cook d- Brown, " 83, 100 

Porter P. Peck, Lot jSV 154, 100 Harvey Montgomery, " 88, 250 

JosiahBisseU,Jr., " 7,13,31, 260 Roswell Hart, " 8,56,57, 400 

Stephen Lusk, " 6, 50 Chas. D. Farman, " 129, 300 

Wra. Robb, Lot, 61, 62, 63, 116, Geo. G. Sill. " 154, 90 

117, 800 James Stoddart, " 130, 100 

Michael Cully, Lot No. 79, 100 Pabricus Reynolds, " 131, 200 

This will give the reader a pretty good idea of the range of pri- 
ces of primitive locations, and bring pioneer names to mind, though 
many of the purchasers did not become permanent residents. The 
author notices but one lot that reverted ; nearly all were paid for by 
purchasers, or those to whom they transferred their contracts. The 
list embraces nearly all the sales that were made before the close of 
the war. The low range of prices will strike the reader, as being 
almost unprecedented in the early history of villages and cities. 
The liberal patroons seemed to have been guided by the considera- 
tion that should govern the founders of towns and settlements, as 
well as legislation in reference to our public lands : — That, as it is 
the Pioneers, the settlers, that add real to what was before little 
more than nominal value, they should be large sharers in what they 
create. 



NATHANIEL ROCHESTER. 



Identified with the Pioneer history of the city of Rochester, far more than 
in name, was the late Col. Nathaniel Rochester. The acting resident co- 
proprietor of the "100 Acre Tract" — the principal germ of village and 
city — we may well consider him the Patroon and Founder of the prosper- 
ous City of the Genesee Valley. Thus blended with the most prominent 
. locality embraced in these annals, a brief biography of him demands a place 
in them ; and especially as in other precedent instances, it may be made to 
embrace, not only interesting reminiscences of our own local region, but 
those of the Revolutionary period. He was one of the founders of an em- 
pire of freemen — our glorious Union — and also one of the founders of 
settlement in one of its most prosperous localities. 

Col. Rochester was a native of Westmoreland, Virginia, the son of John 
Rochester, whose father was an emigrant from the county of Kent in Eng- 
land. When thirteen years of age, his family removed to Granville county 
in North Carohna. Two years afterwards he entered the mercantile estab- 
lishment of James Monroe, in Hillsborough, N. C, as a clerk, becorning 
after a few years a partner in the concern ; a third partner at the time, 
beino- Col. John Hamilton, who was Consul for the British government, in 
the middle States, after the close of the Revolution. Soon after the break- 
inc out of the Revolution, Col. Rochester was appointed a member of the 

Note. Many transfers took place soon after purchase. Lot 1, was present Eagle 

Tavern lot ; 26. site of Pitkin's Block ; 23, partly site of Bum's Block and Arcade ; 
25, Arcade ; 32, S. 0. Smitlis Corner ; 18, 19, partly Gould's Block. 



PHELPS AlsD GORHAM's PURCHASE. 589 

committee of safety for Orange county ; the duty of said committee having 
been, to use his own language: — "To promote the Revolutionary spirit 
among the people, procure arms and ammunition, make collections for the 
city of Boston, whose harbor was blocked up by a British fleet, and to pre- 
vent the sale and use of East India teas." In August, 1775, he attended 
as a member, the first Provincial convention in North Carolina. Among 
the measures adopted was the raising of four regiments of troops ; the or- 
ganization of a militia system, and enrolling of minute men ; and the adop- 
tion of a resolution for an adjourned meetingin May following, to frame and 
adopt a constitution. During the setting of the convention he received a 
Major's commission, and was appointed a Justice of the Peace. 

At the meeiing of the convention in May, he was appointed Commissary 
General of military stores and clothing for the North Carolina line, which 
was then made to consist of ten reoiments. As a member of the conven- 
tion he participated in the organization of a State government for North 
Carolina. 

On tiie adjournment of the convention, he entered upon the active duties 
of providing food and clothing for the army ; the fatigues incident to which, 
accompanied by unusual exposure in unhealthy districts of the country, 
brought on disease so permanent in its character as to cause the resignation 
of his office in accordance with medical advice. He was not destined to 
remain idle in these stirring times. Returning to Hillsboro', he found that 
he had been elected a member of the Legislature, in which he soon took 
his seat; thus becoming a member of one of the earliest legislative bodies 
organized and assembled in defience of British claims to dominion. It was 
at this time, and in this same convention of Pioneer legislators, that Nathan- 
iel Mason, then just graduated h'om college, commenced his long career of 
usefulness. 

About this period Col. Rochester was appointed a Lieut. Col. of militia, 
and clerk of Orange county; in which last office he was the successor of 
Gen. Nash, who was killed at the battle of Germantown. In 1777, he was 
appointed a commissioner to establish and superintend a manufactory of 
arms at Hillsboro' ; the iron necessary for which he transported upon wagons, 
from Pennsylvania, a distance of 400 miles. He was next appointed one 
of the board of auditors of public accounts. In 177S, he engaged in busi- 
ness with Coh Thomas Hart, the father-in-law of Henry Clay, and James 
Brown, who was afterwards minister to France. Col. Hart was then a 
resident near Hillsboro', where he was a large land holder, miller and man- 
ufecturer; being an active whig his tory neighbors depredated upon his 
property to an extent that induced him to take the advice of Gen . Gates, 
then in the command of the southern army, and remove to Hagerstown, 
Maryland, after a disposition of his large estate. In 1781, Col. Rochester 
also removed to Hagerstown and settled on a farm. 

In 1783, the war having been brought to a close. Col, Rochester went 
into the mercantile business witli Col. Hart at Hagerstown; their business 
embracing the manufacture of flour, a nail and rope factory. The part- 
nership continued until 1792, when Col. Rochester went into business on 
his own account He after that, filled successively the ofiices of a member 
of Assembly of Maryland, P. M. at Hagerstown, a Judge of the county 
court, sheriff of the county, elector of President and Vice President in 1808, 



590 PHELPS AND GORHAm's PUECHASE. 

President of the Hagerstown Bank. In all this time he had not only been 
carrying on extensive manufacturing establishments in Hagerstown, but 
had in operation two mercantile establishments in Kentucky. 

In 1800 he first visited the Genesee country, in company with Cols. 
William Fitzhugh, Hilton, and Major Charles Carrol. The measures taken 
by Mr. Williamson to attract the attention of Marylanders to this region, 
have already been noticed. Col. Peregrine Fitzhugh who had not yet re- 
moved, was the neighbor of Col. Rochester at Hagerstown, was active in 
promoting emigration in this direction, and it is presumed, the party were 
induced to take the journey by him. They bore from him a letter of intro- 
duction to Mr. Williamson ; though Major Carrol had previously made his 
acquaintance. The writer informs Mr. Williamson that Ihe fever and ague 
is generally prevalent in Maryland, but hopes that this country is exempt 
from it, " inasmuch as a few pale faces generally makes an unfavorable im- 
pression upon strangers," Before they left the country, Messrs. Carrol 
and Fitzhugh made their large purchase near Mount Morris, and Col. Roch- 
ester the mills, water power, and a portion of the lands upon which he 
afterwards resided at Dansville. In 1802, the three revisited the Gen- 
esee country, and while here, purchased the " 100 Acre," or "Allan Mill 
Tract," in what is now Rochester, then called " Falls Town." 

In 1810, Col. Rochester having closed up his business in Maryland, re- 
moved to Dansville, and occupied his purchase there ; erecting a paper 
mill, the first in all the Genesee country, and making other improvements. 

Disposing of that property in 181-1, he purchased the large farm of the 
late Col. Asher Saxton, in East Bloomfield, upon which he resided until 
1818, when he removed to the locality that had already assumed his name. 

The subject of our sketch has already been hurried through a long, busy 
and eventful career; a life of activity, of public employment, and private 
enterprise, that has few paralels ; and yet a new field of enterprize — a vast, 
successful one it has proved to be — was just opening before him. At an 
age when most men are retiring from the active duties of hfe, he was re- 
engaging in them. 

Soon after settling at Dansville, be had taken some initiatory steps for the 
commencement of operations upon the 100 Acre Tract; in August 1811, 
had surveyed a few lots and was offering them for sale; and while residing 
at Bloonifield, had usually an agent upon or near the property, making fre- 
quent visits to it himself. All that was done, was under his immediate 
supervision, until 1817, when the interests of the proprietors were separated 
by a division of the property, each of them assuming the management of 
his own interest. 

In 1816, Col. Rochester was for the second time an Elector of President 
and Vice President. In 1817 he attended the Legislature at Albany as an 
agent of the petitioners for the erection of what is now Monroe county; 
which consumation was delayed until 1821, at which time it had the bene- 
fit of his active personal exertions. He was the fi^rst clerk of the new 
county, and its first representative in the legislature, in 1821, '2. In 1824 
he was one of the commissioners for taking subscriptions and distributing 
the capital stock of the Bank of Rochester, and upon the organization of 
the institution was unanimously elected its President; which office was 
accepted upon a condition dictated by a sense of the increasing infirmities 



PHELPS- ANT) GORHAm's PUECHASE. 591 

of age, and an impaired physical constitution, that he should resign the 
place as soon as the institution was in successful operation. He resigned in 
December following. This was the last of the numerous public and cor- 
porate trusts of his protracted and active life. The remainder of his days 
were ratlier those of a retired Patriarch, aiding by his counsels and his 
matured judgment, all in matters of local concern; manifesting a deep 
interest in the prosperity of the then thriving and prosperous village; in 
works of charity and benevolence ; in a contemplation of, and preparation 
for the final close of his earthly career. Sustained by an implicit religious 
faith — that of the Episcopal church, of which he had been a liberal pat- 
ron, and at whose altar he knelt, "an humble recipient of its holy symbols,'' 
he bore with patience and fortitude, protracted and painful disease, which 
terminated in his death, onthel7th of May, 1831, in the 79th year of his age. 
If personal eulogy had been within the scope and design of this work, at 
every step in its progress — when reminiscences of the Pioneers of all this 
region were passing rapidly in review — there would have been occasions 
fi>r its indulgence; seldom a more fitting one than the present. Startmg 
in life with but few advantages, as we must infer from the fact that he was 
thrown upon his own resources at the early age of fifteen, with energy and 
integrity of purpose, a fearless self reliance, he had a long career of useful- 
ness. When but fairly under way in private enterprise, his country de- 
manded his services and he obeyed its requisitions; alternating in its 
financial, military and legislative affairs. It exigencies terminating, he was 
as zealous a co-worker in all that related to the beneficial uses of free gov- 
ernment, as he had been in its attainment. Almost constantly tilling im- 
portant public stations, he was at the same time the founder of bisiness es- 
tablishments, the promoter of local prosperity ; and after having in advanced 
life sought and secured a quiet rural life, he broke out from if and became 
the patroon of new settlement ; the founder of a city! ihere are few 
examples of a so varied and active life. VVhat in his case, especially in- 
vites remark, is the fact, that he was well educated as the manner in which 
he discharged his public duties, and transacted his private business, fully 
proves — and yet, the reader will have observed, that his school days ended 
before he had arrived at the age of fifteen years! All beyond that period, 
was self education and self reliance. 

The late Wm. B. Rochester was his eldest son. Educated at Charlotte 
Hall, in Maryland, he prosecuted the study of law, first at Hagerstown, and 
afterwards in the office of Adam Bently, Esq., in Maysville, Ky. He 
opened an office in Bath, Steuben county, in 1809; in the war of 1812, he 
was the aid of Gen. M'CIure, was a volunteer under Smyth's proclamation, 
and participated in the sortie of Fort Erie. At the period of the adoption 
of the new State Constitution, he had been elected to Congress from the 
Steuben district, which office he resigned, accepting the office of Circuit 
Judge of what was then the 8th circuit, which office he continued to fill 
until he was put in nomination for the office of Governor, in 1826. Although 
contending against the strong current of popularity then running in favor 
of Mr. Clinton, the " Young Lion of the West," as he was then termed by 
his ardent and zealous supporters, came within 1200 votes of an election. 
He was soon after appointed Secretary of the American delegation to the 
Congress of Nations at Panama; and afterwards, in succession, was Secre- 



592 PHELPS AUB GOEHAM'S PURCHASE. 

tary of the American Legation to Mexico, and Charge D'affaires to Guate- 
mala. 

Previous to these latter events of his life, he had removed from Bath to 
Eochester. Upon the location of a Branch Bank of the U. S. in Buffalo, he 
was appointed its President, and removed to Buffalo. He spent the winter of 
1837 at Pensacola, closing up the affairs of the Branch Bank located there : 
and returning in the month of June, was one of the passengers of the ill- 
fated Pulaski, that was burned off the cost of North CaroUna. He was 
drowned by the swamping of a boat, in which, with the mate of the vessel 
and others, he was endeavoring to reach the land. James and William B, 
Rochester, of Buffalo, are his sons ; a married daughter resides in Chicago. 

The surviving sons of Col. Nathaniel Rochester, are, Thomas H. Roches- 
ter, President of the Rochester City Bank, Nathaniel T., and Henry E. 
Rochester; daughters became the wives of Harvey Montgomery, Dr. An- 
son Coleman, Jonathan Childs, William Pitkin, Wra. S. Bishop. Of the 
daughters, but Mrs. Pitkin and Mrs. Bishop survive . John Rochester, 
the 2d son of Col. Nathaniel Rochester, was a captain in the regular ser- 
vice in the war of 1812, attached to the 29th Regiment, of which the pre- 
sent Gen. Wool was Major. Retiring from the army, he was connected 
with Mr. Montgomery in early mercantile establishments in Rochester and 
Parma. He emigrated to Missouri in 1818, where he died in 1831. 



The brothers, Dr. Mathew, Francies, and David Brown, were 
originally from Western, Mass. Dr. Brown emigrated in early life 
to Rome, Oneida county, where he remained many years in the 
practice of his profession. Francis Brown, in early life, resided at 
Detroit, with an uncle, Wm. Brown, who was engaged in the Indian 
trade. Soon after 1800 he was shipwrecked on a voyage over Lake 
Erie, was picked up on the shore, exhausted and nearly lifeless. 
On recovering he continued his journey eastward, purchasing a 
canoe at Niagara, with which he coasted along the south shore of 
Lake Ontario. Passing the mouth of the Genesee River he was 
driven in by a storm, and while waiting for it to subside, walked up 
and viewed the Upper Falls and the site of Rochester, and became 
sanguine of the prospective value of the locality. 

Thomas Mumford was from New London, Conn. ; a graduate of 
Yale College; studied the profession of the law with Judge Samuel 
Jones. In 1794 settled in his profession in Aurora, Cayuga county. 
In 1800 removed to Cayuga Bridge. 

In 1810, the Messrs. Browns, Mumford, and John M'Kay, of Cal- 
adonia, had became by purchase of Charles Harford, Oliver Phelps 
and Samuel Parkman, the owners of the 200 acres north of and 
adjoining the Hundred Acre Tract, embracing the main or Upper 
Falls. Mr. Mumford soon purchasing the interest of Mr. M'Kay, 
he became the owner of the south 100 acres, and the half owner 
with the Messr«. Browns, of the north 100 acres. In 1812 Benjamin 
Wright, for the proprietors, surveyed a portion of it into village 



PHELPS Aim GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 593 

lots, and made a few sales before the commencement of the war. 
Previous to acquiring this interest Mr. Mumford had became the 
owner, by purchase of Augustus and Peter B. Porter, of a twelfth 
of the 20,000 acre tract, and over 2000 acres in Brighton ; and the 
purchase of the Messrs. Browns of Charles Harford had included 
a considerable tract of wild land of the 20,000 acre tract. The sep- 
arate and joint purchases of the Messrs. Browns and Mumford, was 
named Frankfort. 

The advent of the Messrs. Browns was in the winter of 1812. 
The two brothers came by sleighing, to view their new purchase, 
bringing a mill-wright with them to assist in projecting some im- 
provements. There was on the Frankfort tract the small grist mill 
(yf Mr. Harford, with one run of stones, and a saw mill, a block 
house in which Mr. Harford resided, a plank house in which his son 
Benedict resided, and there was one or two occupied log shanties on 
the River road before reaching Handford's Landing. A son and 
son-in-law of Mr. Harford had just penetrated the interior of the 
20,000 acre tract, and made small openings in the forest. Upon the 
Frankfort tract, there was hardly an opening enough to let the sun in, 
and but a wood's road that ran along near the river bank. The 
whole tract was a dense forest, the soil wet and miry ; a " dismal 
looking place," says one who saw it at that period. 

In the spring of 1812, Francis Brown came from Rome, bringing 
mill Wrights, mill irons, a small stock of goods, and commenced im- 
provements. What has been known as Brown's race,' was con- 
structed, and the old Harford mill was repaired and three run of 
stones added. Artemas Wheelock lived in the plank shantee, built 
by the Harfords, and kept the boarding house; and the Browns 
soon added a small plank house for Ezra Mason, who brought in his 
family and went into their employ. The improvements named 
were about all that were undertaken during the war. In 1814 how- 
ever, Francis Brown gave Chubb, of Pittsford, a yoke of 

oxen for cutting out the timber and grubbing the stumps to make 
a three rod road, where State street now is. The saw and grist 
mill were kept in operation, the latter drawing customers from as 
far as Niagara county on the Ridge road, and from a wide region in 
other directions. The Browns kept up a small mercantile business, 
in a log store they built on the site of Frankfort market. The clerk 
in the store was Gains B. Rich, who became an early merchant in 
Attica, Genesee county, and is now a well known banker in Buftalo. 

Francis Brown continued to reside in Rochester until 1821, when 
upon account of an asthmatic affection he emigrated to Mobile, 
taking charge of an estate that belonged to his father-in-law, Daniel 
Penfield. He died in 1824. His surviving sons are, Daniel P. 
Brown, a merchant in Toledo, Francis Brown, a merchant in Roch- 
ester ; a married daughter resides at Toledo. The author could 
relate numerous instances remembered by the Pioneers of Roches- 



594 PHELPS AKD GORHAM's PURCHASE. 

ter, of the generous acts of Francis Brown. " To his strict integ- 
rity and honor, in all his dealings," says Ezra Mason, (" his refusal 
to receive another man's money, when he could get nothing of me 
but the promise of labor,) I am indebted for my farm." 

Dr. Mathew Brown continued to reside in Rome, making frequent 
visits to the property until soon after the war, when he became a per- 
manent resident of Rochester. He still survives at the advanced 
age of 86 years. Infirm in health, he lives in retirement, enjoying 
a large share of the esteem and veneration of the dwellers of the 
crowded city with which he has been so long and so prominently 
identified ; one whose founders he may truly be said to have been. 
His surviving sons are, Mathew Brown, of Toledo, Henry H. 
Brown, of Detroit ; daughters became the wives of Wm. Barron 
Williams, who was connected with some of the earliest mercantile 
operations in Lockport, now among the enterprising business men 
of Rochester ; another, the wife of Fletcher M. Haight, formerly of 
Rochester, now of St. Louis. Of the third brother, David Brown, 
the author has no information, beyond the fact that he resided in 
Rochester in early years, prosecuting business in connection with 
the brothers Mathew and Francis. 

The elder Mr. Mumford never became a resident of Rochester. 
His resident representative, as early as 1818, was his son William 
Mumford. Philip Lisle, who purchased an interest in the Mumford 
tract, managed sales previous to 1N18. A partition between Mum- 
ford and the Browns,of the original Harford tract, occurred soon af- 
ter improvements were commenced. Silas Deane Mumford, a 
brother of Thomas Mumford, also purchased an interest in early 
years. Thomas Mumford died at his residence at Cayuga in 1831, 
aged 61 years. Wm. W. Mumford died in Rochester in 18i8. 
Elihu H. S. Mumford, from whom Mumfordville derived its name, 
was killed by the bursting of a steam boiler, in New York, in 1844. 
Geo. H. Mumford, of Rochester, is the surviving son. A daughter 
became the wife of Dr. John G. Vought, an early physician of Roch- 
ester, who removed to New York, where he died during the first 
cholera season ; another daughter is the wife of Samuel D. Dakin, 
of N. York. 

Thomas Mumford was in an early day proprietor of lots 46 and 
47, below Frankfort, which he sold to the late chancellor Jones, and 
subsequently the late James L. Graham, of New York, acquired 
an interest in it. Its sale and improvement have been principally 
under the agency and management of Dr. Alexander Kelsey. 

Ezra Mason, who has already been named, went into the employ- 
ment of the Messrs. Browns soon after they had commenced opera- 
tions, and remained with them until 1817. He gives a graphic ac- 
count of Rochester in early days ; the war alarms, flights and prep- 
aration for flights, the rattle snakes, and the ague and fever. At 
one period an idle rumor came that the British had landed "in 40 



PHELPS AOT) GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 595 

beats at the mouth of the Oak Orchard ;" pits were dug to bury all 
valuable effects, and in a few instances, they were used. At anoth- 
er time the flour was all taken from Messrs. Browns mills and hid in 
the woods. When news of peace came, there was a jubilee ; every 
thing brightened up and began to move on briskly. There was a 
rattle snakes den on the east side of the River, below Falls Field, 
and they used frequently to visit the west side of the River. On 
one occasion, Mrs. Mason found an infant daughter attempting to 
pet a large rattle snake who was giving " notice of intention" to 
strike. Mr. Mason and Mrs. Mason resides upon the farm on the 
Lisle Road, they commenced on in 1817; and where they have 
seen the roughest features of pioneer life, but where they are now 
surrounded with smiling and productive fields. They have eleven 
children, all of whom have arrived at adult age. 

Hamlet Scrantom was from Durham, Conn.; in 1805 emigrated to 
Lewis county in this State, where he remained until 1812. In 1811, 
he visited Geneseo, and having been acquainted with the Wads- 
worths in Durham, they named to him Genesee Falls, as a locality 
where a town was likely to grow up. Henry Skinner who had pur- 
chased the Eagle Tavern corner, resided at Geneseo, and to encour- 
age Mr. Scrantom to locate at the Falls, proposed to erect tor him 
a log house upon it. Men were sent down for that purpose, they 
erected the body of a log house, but before covering it they were at- 
tacked with the fever and ague, and obliged to quit. Mr. Scran- 
tom arriving with his family soon after, was allowed a shelter in a 
shantee belonging to Enos Stone, on the site now occupied by the 
dwelling of Anson House, where he resided until August, when he 
moved into the log house on the Eagle corner. Mr. Scrantom be- 
ing by occupation a miller, soon went into the employ of the Messrs. 
Bissell and Elys. He purchased two lots, one of them being the 
site of the store of O. L. Sheldon, and the other, the site of the old tan- 
nery of Mr. Graves. He built a dwelling on the Buffalo street lot. 
In 1814 he purchased a farm, now the Hanks property near Mount 
Hope, for $4 per acre, erected a log house and went there to reside, 
to have his family less exposed in case of British invasion ; becoming 
the first neighbor of D. K. Carter. He removed back to the village 
at the close of the war, and became the miller of the Messrs. Browns. 
In late years he was an agent of Culver and Maynard, in the con- 
struction of the first locks at Lockport, where the author knew him 
as a highly esteemed and worthy man. He was a trustee of the 
first school and school district, organized in Rochester and was an 
efficient helper in early religious organizations ; one of the founders 
of St. Luke's church. 

He died in April, 1850, aged 77 years; his wife still survives. 
His surviving sons are, Henry Scrantom, merchant, Elbert Scran- 
tom, late city Treasurer, Edwin Scrantom, an early printer 
and editor, and now a successful auction and commission merchant^ 



596 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

and Hamlet Scrantom, a clerk of canal superintendent ; all ot 
Rochester. Daughters became the wives of Jehiel Barnard, a 
Pioneer in Rochester, now a resident of Ogden ; another, the wife 
of Martin Briggs of Rochester ; and there is an unmarried daughter. 

Abelard Reynolds was from Pittsfield, Mass., his occupation that 
of a saddler. In 1811, he travelled through this State and the north- 
ern portion of Ohio, and made up his mind to settle in Warren, 
Trumbull county. Returning to Pittsfield, in the spring of 1812, he 
was on his way there to make arrangements for removing his fam- 
ily and effects, w4ien in remaining over night at Bloomfield, he met 
Col. Hopkins, of Pittsford, and several other gentlemen, who recom- 
mended him to visit Charlotte, at the mouth of the Genesee River, 
which they said. " being at the outlet of the rich products of the 
valley of the Genesee, with its commercial advantages, w-as des- 
tined at no distant period, to become a place of unrivalled impor- 
tance." He diverged from his route, enquired the way to the with 
him, newly heard of locality, come to the Genesee Falls, finding in 
the woods Enos Stone, also "from Berkshire," who interested him 
in his relation of what Col. Rochester had been doing towards start- 
ing a village. The most he saw in the way of improvement how- 
ever, or signs of civilization, was some remains of the old Allan 
mill, the cabin that the miller had occupied, and the unfinished 
bridge over the River. " The whole aspect and appearance of the 
place," says Mr. Reynolds, "was then the most undesirable and 
forbidding that language can describe. Yet it was evident in the 
reflecting mind, that the natural elements of future greatness w-ere 
here combined, and lay concealed amid this chaotic confusion." 
Mr. Stone, as the agent of Col. Rochester, importuned him to be- 
come the purchaser of a lot ; but he made up his mind to see Char- 
lotte first. Taking directions from Mr. Stone how to ford the Riv- 
er; and especially that he must make for the "large sycamore tree 
on the opposite bank," his reliable horse carried him safely over, 
though he remembers that the story Mr. Stone had just told him of 
a man who with his horses and wagon, had but a few days before 
been carried over the Falls, predominated in his mind.* 

Mr. Reynolds visited Charlotte, continued on his journey to 
Ohio, but the embryo village at Genesee Falls, had made a favorable 
impression upon him ; he returned and purchased lots 23 and 24, 
upon which the Arcade now stands. With the aid of " oxen and 
a stone boat," kindly furnished by Enos Stone, he drew stone from 
the bed of the river, made a foundation 24 by 36 feet, erected a 
frame upon it, and leaving it in charge of a carpenter to be covei"- 
ed and enclosed, returned to Berkshire. Coming back in Novem- 
ber, he found the house in the condition he had left it, and erecting 



* The roader -will bear in mind that at that early period the Genesee River was not 
the diminished body of water, he has seen in later years. 



PHELPS AND GOEH All's PUECHASE. 597 

a smaller frame, in a few weeks had it tenantable. It was the first 
framed building erected on the Hundred Acre Tract. In Novem- 
ber, 1813, he removed his family. A brother-in-law who assisted in 
the removal, went back to Massachusetts and reported that he had 
left them in a place where they must " inevitably starve." 

In November, 1812, he had been appointed P. M., and had made 
Mr. Stone his deputy until he got settled. The nett proceeds of the 
office up to April 1, 1813, was $3 46. With limited means, and 
encountering a long season of ague and fever, he had a hard intro- 
duction to pioneer life, but with courage and fortitude, he " bore up 
and bore on," gradually reaping the reward of his enterprise. He 
was the first saddler, the first P. M., and the first magistrate in all 
of Rochester, and' kept the first public house on the Hundred 
Acres, or original site of Rochester. He held the office of P. M. 
when the nett quarterly returns were $340 ; he surrendered it to 
other hands in 1829, when they amounted to $2,105 16. In 1828, 
he erected the Arcade upon the ground he had originally purchased 
and occupied — an enterprize of magnitude, and ahead of the times 
then — even now, after a twenty years' march of progress, not be- 
hind. The small plat of ground he purchased when it was almost 
in its primitive condition, is now producing an annual rent 5^'hich is 
exceeded only by that of but few spots of equal size in the most fa- 
vorite localities of the largest cities in the Union. In the hands of 
his son, Wm. A. Reynolds, there has been added to the property 
Corintliian Hall, a structure creditable to the city ; a model even 
for similar enterprizes in the older cities. 

Mr. Reynolds is now in the 66th year of his age ; his surviving 
sons are, Wm. A. Reynolds and Mortimer F. Reynolds, of Rochester, 
the last of whom was the first born on the Hundred Acre Tract, 
after it had been platted as a village ; a daughter resides in Roches- 
ter, and another in Illinois. The Pioneer wife and mother still sur- 
vives. 

Hervey Ely was from West Springfield, Mass., the nephew and 
ward of Justin Ely, one of the original proprietors of the 20,000 
acre tract. ' In November, 1813, at the age of 22 years, he cast his 
lot with the Pioneers of Rochester. In company with his brother, 
Elisha Ely, and Josiah Bissell, he commenced selling goods in a small 
building that stood on the Hart corner. Bringing men and supplies 
from Massachusetts, they soon erected a saw mill, their boarding 
place being a stable of Mr. S. O. Smith, which had been cleared 
out and fitted up for that purpose. In 1817 they built the red mill, 
with four run of stones. The care of the mill devolved upon Hervey 
Ely ; and thus becoming a Pioneer miller in Rochester, he has con- 

KoTE. — Justin Ely took an active part in the Revolution — principally in mustering 
the militia for senice. A considerable capitalist, he loaned money to Mr. Phelps, and 
received liis pay in lands in different localities on Phelps and Gorhams' Puixhase ; 
thence his proprietorship in the 20,000 acre tract. 



598 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 

tinued in the business, until he has seen it in his own and other 
hands, arrive at a magnitude considerably exceeding that of any- 
other locality in the world! In 1822 he built the stone mill now 
occupied by Mr. C. C. Winants, and in 1828 the extensive estab- 
lishment on the west side of the River adjoining the Aqueduct. 
After being engaged in the milling business for 38 years, he is yet 
in his 60th year, engaged in it — active and enterprismg as in his 
early years. Some idea of the magnitude of his operations may be 
gathered from the statistical facts, that with the exception of the 
late Gen. Beach, he has paid more canal tolls upon his own property 
than any shipper on our canals ; for the first ten years after the 
Erie canal was completed he paid 1 3-4 and 11-2 per cent of the 
entire canal revenue. He pioneered in the business of bringing 
wheat from the western States to be manufactured in Rochester, in 
1828. He has manufactured from his own wheat, in one year, 80,- 
000 barrels of flour ! Later comers, to be sure, are deserving of 
credit for their enterprise — as helpers in the work of making Roch- 
ester what it is — but it is especially gratifying to record such 
facts, in reference to a Pioneer. 

EHsha Ely removed to Allegan, Michigan, in 1834, where he still 
resides; is a Judge of Probates, and a Regent of the University of 
Michigan. 

James B. Carter was the Pioneer blacksmith, locating upon the 
Hundred Acre Tract in 18!2. He erected a small story and a half 
house on the corner now occupied by the block of Dr. John B. El- 
wood. His shop was on ground now occupied by Front street. He 
survives, a resident of Churchville. In March, 1814, his brother, 
David K. Carter, removed from Lewis county and became the oc- 
cupant of the house. In the same year he purchased the Mansion 
house lot from second hands, paying for it $106 ; in 1817 erected 
upon it a three story tavern house. The first lessee of it was Dan- 
iel Mack, a brother-in-law of Erastus Spalding. Mr. Mack emi- 
grated to Detroit; a surviving son is Charles S. Mack of the firm 
of Mack & Van Valkenburg, Lockport. The next lessee of the 
house was John Christopher, who had opened a house at Handford's 
Landing, and relinquished it on account of sickness there. He kept 
the house for fourteen years — and a comfortable one he made of 
it as many an early traveller in the old stage coaches over the 
Ridge Road will remember. Mrs. Christopher still survives, a resi- 
dent with her son, John Christopher, in St. Louis. Another sur- 
viving son is Joseph Christopher, of Buffalo. 

In 1817 Mr. Carter purchased of Augustus Porter thirty-two acres 
on the river, on either side of what is now Mount Hope Avenue, south 
of the canal, for f 3 per acre, upon which he found but a bark covered 
log house. In 1820 he erected a tavern house, long known as the 
"Carter stand," on the Henrietta road. He died in 1827; his 
widow still survives, a resident of Rochester. There are five sur- 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 599 

yiving sons in five different States, one of whom is David K. Carter, 
a present or late M. C, from Ohio ; Mrs. Dennis M'Arthur, of Syra- 
cuse is a daughter. 

Mrs. Carter well remembers the first meeting she attended in 
Rochester — a reading meeting — held in Jehiel Barnard's tailor 
shop, on site of Pitkin's block. Old Mr. Harford read the Episco- 
pal service, Silas O. Smith the sermon ; Jehiel Barnard led the sing- 
ing. "In 1814 we got up a small school house, and it was with 
difficulty that we got together about a dozen scholars. Aaron Skin- 
ner was the teacher." Mrs. Carter observes that when she first 
came to Rochesterville there was but small openings of the forest. 

Dr. Simeon Hunt, still a surviving practicing physician in Roch- 
ester, has been in practice in Monroe county forty years. He set- 
tled in what is now Greece, his only permanent predecessor, Dr. 
Zaccheus Colby, who died in early years ; his surviving sons are 
Hull and Zaccheus Colby, of Greece, and Merril Colby of Nunda. 
Dr. Hunt is in 66th year ; surviving sons, Anson M. Hunt of Albion, 
Rev. T. D. Hunt of San Francisco, who was for five years a mis- 
sionary in the Sandwich Islands ; Mrs. Moore of Rochester is a 
daughter. 

Dr. Hunt was a surgeon of Isaac W. Stone's Dragoons in the 
war of 1812, and continued under his successor, Col. C. V. Bough- 
ton ; was at the sortie of Fort Erie and battle of Lundy's Lane. 

Dr. Jonah Brown was the earliest physician of Rochester ; he 
still survives, a resident of Irondequoit. Dr. Orrin Gibbs, of the 
early Pioneer family in Livonia, was next ; died several years since ; 
his father, Deacon Gibbs, also settled in Rochester in the earliest 
years. 

Abraham Starks, was so early in Rochester, that he kept a small 
grocery store in the woods, near the present Mansion House. 

Jonathan Child was from Orange county, Vermont. He came to 
Utica as a school teacher, in 1806, where he became the clerk of 
Watts Sherman, a widely known merchant of early years, and uncle 
of the Albany banker of that name. In 1810 he established him- 
self vvith a small stock of goods at Charlotte, where he was succeeded 
in a few months by Frederick Bushnell. He was next established 
in Bloomfield, in company with Benjamin Gardner. In 1820 he re- 
moved to Rochester, and soon after was engaged for several years 
as a contractor upon the heavy rock cutting through the Mountain 
Ridge at Lockport, in the construction of the Erie Canal. To his 
business as contractor, he added at Lockport, one of the earliest 
mercantile establishments in that locality. He was one of the early- 
proprietors of the old Pilot transportation line upon the canal. He 
still survives at the age of 66 years ; his wife, who it will have been 
observed was the daughter of Col. Rochester, died in 1850. His life 
has been one of business, activity andenterprize; success crowned the 
enterprises of his early career — then came severe reverses ; but he 



600 PIEELPS AND GOEHAJl's PUECHASE. 

was of the material that a large class of the early Pioneers were 
made of — and now, at an age when most men are seeking ease and 
retirement, he is in the active management of a new branch of busi- 
ness of great magnitude and public utility, of which he is one of the 
founders ; active, stirring, sanguine persevering, as in middle life : 

" His age, like a lusty winter, -f. osty, but kindly." 

Samuel J. Andrews was from New Haven, Conn., a graduate of 
Yale College ; was a brother-in-law of Moses Atwater of Canan- 
daigua. On a visit to this region in 1812, he purchased jointly with 
Dr. Atwater, of Augustus Porter, a tract of land on the River, 
adjoining the farm of Enos Stone on the north, embracing the Up- 
per Falls. In 1815 he brought on a small stock of goods which he 
opened in the house of Enos Stone, and soon after his family. Mr. 
Stone having laid out a few lots on Main street, Mr. Andrews pur- 
chased what is now the corner of Main and St. Paul street, and built 
upon it a stone house, the first structure, other than of wood, in Roch- 
ester. Before the close of 1816 he had commenced the erection of 
mills at the Falls. He died in 1832, aged 64 years. He was the 
father of Samuel G. Andrews, under whose auspices, what has been 
called the Andrews' Tract, has principally been surveyed and sold 
out in village and city lots ; of James S. and Julius T. Andrews, of 
Rochester ; Mrs. Wm. P. Sherman, of Rochester, and the wife of 
Judae Joseph R. Swan, of Columbus, Ohio. The elder Mr. An- 
drews had been engaged in commercial pursuits, but he readily 
adopted himself to the work of settling and improving a new region, 
and was always sanguine in reference to the destiny of Rochester. 
The original Andrews and Atwater Tract — in all 140 acres — is 
now mostly occupied, principally with private dwellings ; is the 
Sixth Ward; has been sold and occupied principally under the 
agency of Samuel G. Andrews. Mrs. Andrews survives, a resident 
with her daughter, Mrs Sherman. 



EVENTS OF A LATER PIONEER PERIOD. 



So far, after reaching the site of Rochester, Pioneer advents and 
events, have principally been confined to the period immediately 
preceeding and during the war of 1812. Those that will follow gen- 
erally have reference to a later period — when all of Western New 
York was reviving from the eflects of the war, and Rochester es- 
pecially was setting out upon its rapid march, and giving earnest 
of its future destiny ; though the merging of the periods, in some 
degree, is unavoidable : — 

John G. Bond was a native of Rockingham, New Hampshire, a 
son of Dr. John Bond, a surgeon in the Navy during the Revolu- 
tion, having studied his profession with Dr. Bartlett, one ot the 



PHELPS AND GORHAm's PUECHASE. 601 

signers of the Declaration of Independence. On the maternal side 
he was of a Pioneer stock. His grandfather, Wm, Moulton, was 
the first settler of Marietta, Ohio, in 1788, the women of his family 
the first white females in Ohio. The subject of this sketch was bred 
a merchant, and in 1799 became the partner of Gen. Amasa Allen, 
in Keene, N. H. In June 1815, he visited Rochester upon a mixed 
errand of exploration and business. Impressed with the advantages 
of the locality, he purchased of Jehiel Barnard, the lot now occupied 
by Pitkin's block, on which there was a small framed house ; after 
which he visited Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Toronto, and returned 
home via Montreal. The farther account of his early advent — his 
reminiscences of primitive days in Rochester — the author prefers 
to give in his own language. There are few of the surviving Pio- 
neers of Rochester who so well remember early events, or more 
largely participated in them. 

In 1823, Judge Bond changed his residence from Rochester to 
Lockport, then a small village in the woods, which had sprung up 
after the location of the canal ; where he had a joint interest with 
his brother, Wm. M. Bond, who now resides at Mt. Morris, and the 
late Jesse Hawley, in a tract of land upon the original village plat. 
He was a good helper there as he had been in Rochester, in all those 
things which are required to give new communities an auspicious 
commencement. He was one of the early Judges of Niagara. He 
is now 73 years of age, a resident of Niles, Michigan, where he was 
also a Pioneer. His wife, who was the daughter of the Hon. Dan- 
iel Newcomb, of New Hampshire ; died in 1848. There are three 
surviving sons residing at Niles, and an only surviving daughter, 
Mrs. Wm. C. House, resides at Lockport. A deceased daughter 
was the wife of Jacob Beeson, an enterprizing merchant of Niles. 



REMINISCENCES OF JOHN G. BOND. 



In the fall of 1 81 5 having in company with my brother-in-law and partner, 
Daniel D. Hatch, purchased what was then deemed a large stock of goods, 
in Boston and New York, we were fairly under way in the mercantile busi- 
ness in " Rochesterville." Our transportation had cost us $4,50 per 100 
from Albany, Enlarging the small house and shop that Barnard had built, 
we made it answer for our store. In the way of merchandizing, there had 
preceded us Silas O. Smith, Ira West, Bissell & Ely, Roswell Hart. At 
this period, (and within a few months after,) the citizens of all of what is 
now Rochester, were, other than the merchants I have named, the Browns, 
Philip Lisle, C. Harford, Mr. Hamblin, Hamlet Scraatom, D. Carter, Hast- 
ings R. Bender, John Mastick, Harvey Montgomery, Abelard Reynolds and 
his father's family, George and H. L. Sill, Deacon Gibbs and Dr. Gibbs, Dr. 
Jonah Brown, John C. Rochester, Mr. Wakefield, the widow King and her 
two sons Bradford and Moses King. Ashbel Steel, Comfort Williams, 
38 



602 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 

Daniel Mack, Enos Stone, Mrs. Isaac W. Stone, Solomon Close, Thomas 
Kempshall, Seth Saxton, Enos Poraeroy, Roswell Babbitt, Luther Dowell, 
Erastus Cook, Daniel Tmker, \Vm. Rogers, Kellogg Vosbnrgb, I.ibbeus 
Elliott, Adonijah Green, James Irvin, A.& J. Colvin, Augustine G. Dauby, 
James Sheldon, Henry Skinner, Wm. W. Jobson, M. P. Covert, Samuel J. 
Andrews, Azel Ensworth, Ruluft' Hannahs, Chauncey Mead, Willis Kemp- 
shall, Preston Smith, Benedict Harford, J, Hoit. I of course include the 
families of all who had them; many of those named were unmarried. 

The population increased very rapidly in the latter part of 1816, and in 
'17, and '18. The timber was cut out of Bufialo street as far as what is 
now ''Halsted Hall," in the spring of 1816; at which time there was but a 
wagon track on the Scottsville road south of Cornhill. The road from Oliver 
Culver's to Rochester was mostly a log causeway, rough as any that may 
now be seen in the newest regions. It was a good hour's work to go over 
it with a wagon. There was, I think less than 100 acres of cleared land 
on all the site of Rochester. In all th.e region abound Rochester, with the 
exception of a part of Brighton, Penfield and Pittsford, there was seldom 
but the primitive log house, small openings of the forest. The now fine 
town of Henrietta looked little as if I should live to see it what it now is. 

In February 1816, 1 brought my own family and that of my partner, 
Mr. Hatch, from New Hampshire, changing from runners to wheels, and 
finally arriving when asuddenthaw had left the roads in a horrid condition. 
Houses were scaice and rents high. In less than a year I changed my 
residence four limes. I first went into house built by Francis Brown, 
the same that the good old gentleman Dr. Brown now lives in; next a house 
built by John Mastick on the Brighton side; next into the house cf Ira 
West, on west side of State street; next into a house owned by John Roch- 
ester, a little south of the Rochester Flouse. I built the house, the late 
residence of Gen. Matthews on Washington street, in 1817; and had previr 
ously, in 1816 built the store which Dr. Pitkin occupied for manyyearsas a 
druggist shop, and which now stands in rear of his fine brick block. The 
old shop I had bought of Jehiel Barn-nrd, and converted into a store was 
used successively by Dr. Jabez Wilkinson, Dr. Backus, and John A. Gran- 
ger, as a drugstore. 

What was then a very serious fire, occurred, Ithink in 1819, which des- 
troyed several shops and stores on the Arcade lot and my lot ; and the only 
printing office. 

W'hen I began on Washington street, in May or June, 1816, to clear 
away the native forest for the purpose of building my house, my neighbors 
expressed some astonishment, that I should think of building so far back in 
the woods. I told them that within twenty or thirty years, I expected to 
see it in the midst of a great city. They mostly demurred to my proph- 
ecies, and said if the population ever reached the number of 2,500 it would 
be more than they were looking for. In 1816 myself and Hervey Ely plaot- 
ted sugar maple and other trees along on the west side of Washington 
street, "the first trees for ornament set out in Rochester. There was no 
house west of Sophia street, before I built mine. On the ground now oc- 
cupied by the Stone Market, I erected a large asheryas early as 1815. 
Previous to December, 1815, our mail was brought from Canandaigua on 
horseback. Capt. Elisha Ely and myself concluded to make an attempt 



PHELPS AISTD GOKHAm's PUECHASE. 603 

to raise a company to run a stage to Canandaigua. We went along the 
route and succeeded in getting Wni. Hildreth and other tavern keepers on 
it 10 engage in the enterprise. In January, ISld, the mail was first brought 
to Rochester in a four horse coach, or rather, a coach body upon runners. 
We followed up the enterprise by a journey to Lewiston on the Ridge 
Road. We were three days in reaching Lewiston, and we broke down our 
sleigh three times, by running foul of snags on the track. We succeeded 
in enl.sting upon the route, (principally Messrs. Barton and Fairbanks of 
Lewiston.) a sufficient interest to extend the Canandaigua route over the 
Ridge Road. In June, 1816, a tri-weekly four horse coach was put upon 
it. This was thought to be far ahead of the times — some said eight or 
ten years at least — but within a year, there was often the necessity of 
sending out three or four extras in a day, and soon the Ridge Road became 
a great thoroughfare. 

We early cilizens of Rochester had a great difficulty in getting the new 
county of Monroe. The old counties of Ontario and Genesee were mostly 
opposed to dismemberment. I was often with others, in Canandaigua and 
Batavia to promote the object. We were told in those localities that it 
was a wild and foolish project to think of having a new county in the back, 
sparsely settled, Lake region. In answer to some unkind remarks of a 
gentleman at Canandaigua — language of contempt, touching the aspir- 
ing and assuming young village of Rochester — Dr. Brown ventured to 
foretell its destiny, and promise that it would soon reach a position that 
would command respect instead of contempt and derision. 

In the year 1816 and '17, Rochester had a rapid growth, a large addi- 
tion was made to its population. It had become not only the principal 
wheat market for the whole valley of the Genesee, but for most of what is 
now Ontario, Wayne, Orleans and Genesee. The crowding in of teams, 
sales of wheat, made store trade, and with new comers dropping in, build- 
ings going up, ^c, the young village was a scene of activity and enter- 
prise. Hanford's Landing was the principal shipping point. Vessels be- 
gan to make regular trips to the mouth of the River and Hanford's Land- 
ing from all the ports below. Flour and wheat, pot and pearl ash, whis- 
key and staves, were the principal articles of commerce. In '16 some 
good dwelling houses began to be built. Population was increasing so 
rapidly that we had to enlarge the building in which we had our school, 
and held our meetings. 

After the canal had been located as far west as Montezuma, it became a 
question where it should cross the Genesee River. Carthage below, and 
some point above — Black creek I think, — were proposed. While this 
was a mooted question, the Oswego route. Lake Ontario, and a canal around 
the Falls of Niagara, was revived, and became a powerful competitor. 
News came that the Canal Board were divided upon the question of over 
land and Lake route. This created a good deal of stir with us, and alarm 
it may be added. A meeting of the citizens of Rochester was convened in 
my counting room, a handbill was drawn up by Enos Pomeroy, signed by 
many c'tizens, printed and circulated far and wide. It was headed ''Canal 
in Danger!" This was just pending the State election. The handbill 
favored the election of Mr. Clinton, as Governor, and of his friends to the 
Legislature. It was a close vote as all will remember, between Clinton and 



604 PHELPS AND GOEHAJm's PTJECHASE. 

Tompkins, and I think the Rochester movement, its stirring appeal by 
handbill, to the local interests of Western New York, decided the contest.* 
An early adventurer in Rochester, I had from the first, high anticipa- 
tions of its future greatness, and espoused its cause with an ardent zeal, 
as many of my old friends -will remember. My predictions were sometimes 
looked upon as " castles in the air," but they have proved to be upon terra 
firma — made of real and substantial brick, stone and mortar, as all may 
now see. I visited the scenes of my early enterprises and associations, 
during the last season, and my heart was warmed in taking by the hand 
my old neighbors and co-workers of Pioneer times; in talking over the 
events of early days, and witnessing the evidences of prosperity spread 
out upon every hand. Where I had in years of maturity, helped to clear 
away the forest, was a population of near 40,000 ; weahh, prosperity and 
all the happiness that a high degree of civilization and refinement can in- 
sure, Avas spread out upon every hand; and more than all, with me, was 
the recognition of old friends, whom 1 had encouraged to cast their lot with 
me, in the primitive, rough and forbidding locality — whom I had seen 
struggling in early years, with hardships and privations — in the enjoyment 
of health and competence, in their declining years. May God bless, and 
continue all this, is the hope and the prayer of a surviving non-resident 
Pioneer. 



Richard Kempshall with a large family, was an emigrant from 
England, locating in a neighborhood of chiefly English families in 
what is now Pittsford, in 1806. He died in less than a year, of the 
prevalent disease of the new country, after having expended all of 
his small means in emigrating, making the first payment upon a tract 
of new land, in erecting a log house, and defraying other incidental 
expenses, leaving a wife and'ten children in indigent circumstances. 
With no ability to make the payments still due upon their lands, 
they were obliged to let it revert, and destitute even of a home, the 
support of the large family devolved upon the widow, and the eldest 
son, Willis, who was then but eighteen years of age. The family 
was broken up, but through the extraordinary exertions of Willis, 
mostly found good homes under the roofs of the more fortunate Pio- 
neers. Of the ten children, six still survive. 

Willis Kempshall, having acquired from his father the trade of a 
carpenter, was as early as 1813 in the employ of the Messrs. Browns, 
in Frankfort. He became a permanent resident in Rochester as 
early as 1814, where he has since mostly resided until quite recently, 
he has purchased a farm in Wyoming, Wyoming county, upon which 
he now resides with a large family. 



* The author Las been favored by Judge Bond with a copy of the famous handbill ; 
an interesting liistorical reminiscence. It is signed by Roswell Hart, Ira West, Thos. 
Kempshall, Russell Ensvorth, Chas. J. Hill, Ralph Parker, D. D. Hatch, J. Ludden, 
John G. Bond, Chas. Harford, Benjamin Blossom, Enos Biossom, Solomon Close, 
Anson House, Samuel J. Andrews, Oliver Culver, Enos Stone. Azel Ensworth. 



PHELPS AND GORKAm's PURCHASE. 605 

Thomas Kempshall, the more immediate subject of this brief bio- 
graphical sketch, woriied with his brother in early years ; in the 
winter of 1813, '14, had the good fortune to be placed in the store of 
that early Pioneer merchant and excellent man, Ira West, to whose 
examples, councils and friendship, he was largely indebted for a good 
business education, and moral attainments which prepared him for 
a career of extraordinary enterprise and usefulness.* The clerkship 
ended with Mr. West, he became his partner, at a period when his 
business had become largely extended and profitable. Mr. West 
retiring in 1821, Mr. Kempshall continued the business on his own 
account for several years, when John F. Bush, who had been a clerk 
in the establishment, became his partner. The business was prose- 
cuted for a few years under the firm of Kempshall & Bush, when 
it was changed to that of an extensive furnace, and mill furnish- 
ing establishment, under the management, mainly, of Mr. Bush. 
This business was discontinued about ten years since. In 182G, 
Mr. Kempshall formed a business connection with Gen. E. S. Beach, 
and the two erected the Aqueduct Mill, an extensive flouring es- 
tablishment at the west end of the Aqueduct, fronting Child's Basin. 
It was put in operation in 1827, and carried on under the firm of 
Beach & Kempshall, until 1834, when Mr. Kempshall became the 
sole owner and manager. He prosecuted the business until he was 
obliged to suspend it in consequence of losses sustained during the 
severe financial revulsion of 1838, '39, '40. The property passed 
into the hands of Gen. Beach ; Mr. Kempshall continuing his con- 
nection with it until the present time. 

Uninterrupted success, wealth, had rewarded his early enterprise, 
and long years of close application to business, when reverses and 
embarrasments came upon him under which he has struggled with a 
bearing of manliness, fortitude, and an integrity unimpaired, that have 
commanded respect and esteem. The orphan boy of a foreign em- 
igrant, thrown upon his own resources, unaided but by the patron 
who had the discrimination to discover merit, and a heart large 
enough to reward it, he " grew with the growth and strengthened 
with the strength" of the locality where his lot was cast. Entering 
it while as yet the forest had not receded from its now main thorough- 
fares, and the sites of its costly public edifices, it became an incor- 
porated village, and he became one of its officers ; it became a city, 
and in progress of time, he became its Mayor. 

And not less intimately or honorably is his history blended with 
that of the whole county of Monroe. The occupant of a log 
cabin, when it was " a region of log cabins," the boy and 
man, the primitive region, the populous and wealthy county, had 

* Hitherto there has been but incidental alhisions to Ira "West. It should be added 
that to Ills public spirit, enterprise and Liberality, Rochester vras largely indebted in its 
early years. 



()06 PHELPS AN"D GOEHAJm's PURCHASE. 

kept pace with eacli other, in the march of progress ; and in 1838, 
the one bore the relation to the other, of its Representative in our 
national councils. 

Rochester has many examples among its Pioneers and founders, 
of self made, (and well made,) men; and when its history, and their 
histories, are so blended as in this instance, it is a pleasing task to 
turn aside and for a few moments dwell upon the analogy. Were 
this not the history of a wide region, instead of a single locality, far 
more w^ould be said of the early men of Rochester. 

Mr. Kempshall still survives, his enterprise and industry unabated 
by misfortune, or declining years. 

Josiah Bissell, Jr., had a business connection with the Elys in 
their primitive advent in 1813, but he did not become a resident 
until 1817. He was previously a merchant in Pittsfield, Mass. He 
was an early and efficient helper in church organizations ; was the 
principal founder of the 3d Presbyterian church ; and also of the 
six day line of stages, the object of which was to avoid the desecra- 
tion of the Sabbath occasioned by the seven day lines. There are 
few names and memories more closely identified with Rochester. 
In J 827 he purchased in company with Ashbel W. Riley, of Enos 
Stone, with small exceptions, all of the unsold portion of his origi- 
nal large farm. Erecting his dwelling — which is now a part of 
the fine mansion house of Dr. Levi Ward, in " The Grove" — in the 
midst of the purchase, a large addition to the city was made under 
his auspicies ; new streets laid out, and dw^ellings erected. He died 
in the prime of life, at Seneca Falls, where he was engaged in a 
business enterprise, in 1830, aged 40 years. His surviving sons are 
Josiah W. Bissell, of Rochester, a broker ; Charles P. Bissell, Presi- 
dent of the Eagle Bank of Rochester; George P. Bissell, Cashier of 
the Western Bank, Pittsfield, Mass. ; Champion Bissell, of New 
York. An only daughter is the wife of Willard Parker, Professor 
of the University of New York. 

In 1817, Elisha Johnson removed from Canandaigua to Roches- 
ter. He was a son of Capt. Ebenezer Johnson, who was an early 
Pioneer in Chautauque county ; a brother of Dr. Johnson, who is so 
closely identified with the history of Buffalo. His profession was 
that of an Engineer. On coming to Rochester he purchased of 
Enos Stone all the unsold portion of his original farm, (and but little 
had been sold previously,) lying upon the River and extending back 
to North street. This purchase embraced the water power upon 
the east side of the River, principally above the Upper Falls, and 
about 80 acres of what is now a compactly occupied and built up 
portion of the city. Mr. Johnson paid $10,000 for the property, 
and before the close of the first year expended upon it 812,000 in 
the erection of a dam across the river, and the construction of a race. 
Orson Seymour, of Canandaigua soon became a joint owner. This 
may be said to have been the starting period of all that portion of 



PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. 607 

the city lying east of the river, as but Uttle had been done there pre- 
viously. The name, and enterprises of Mr. Johnson, are probably 
more closely associated with what used to be called the " Brio;hton 
side" — now almost one half of the entire city — than those of any 
other individual. 

He was the Mayor of the city in 1838; an Elector of President 
and Vice President in 1844. One of his many business enterprises 
was the formidable work of constructing the tunnel ot the Genesee 
Valley Canal at Portage, or prosecuting it until the work was sus- 
pended by the State. He is now in his G6th year, yet in active life, 
a citizen of East Tenessee, where his only son, Mortimer F. John- 
son also resides. His daughters became the wives of Chauncey L. 
Grant, of Ithica, Elihu H. S. Mumford, Benj. F. Young, Edward B. 
Younor. 



CARTHAGE. 



Elislia B. Strong was from Windsor, Conn., a descendant of the 
Pioneer colonists of that town. After graduating at college, in 
1809, he made a trip to Niagara Falls, was pleased with the country, 
located at Canandaigua, entering the office of Howell and Greig as 
a law student. Admitted to practice in 1812, he was for several 
years the law partner of Wm. H. Adams, who was his successor 
in business at Canandaigua. In 1816 he purchased in company 
with Elisha Beach, 1000 acres embracing the site of Carthage, of 
Caleb Lyon,* who had been settled there for several years, had 
made a small opening in the forest, and erected a few log cabins. 
The few families upon the tract were mostly squatters. Nearly all 
of what is Irondequoit was a wilderness ; Mr. Greig was offering 
some of the poorest lands at 50 cents per acre ; for the best he 
asked $5. Sylvester Woodman, a retired sea captain, was the first 
purchaser of a farm ; those that preceded him had been squatters 
engaged principally in lumbering. In 1816, there was no access to 
the stte of Carthage or the mouth of the River, from the east and 
west Brighton road, other than the "Merchants road," made prin- 
cipally by the merchants of Canandaigua some years before, which 
left the Brighton road a little east of the farm of Oliver Culver, and 
a woods road, with blazed trees as guides, that had been made by 
Mr. Lyon, on the River, to the Brighton road. 

In 1817, a bridge was projected and commenced across the Gen- 
esee River at Carthage, by a joint stock company consisting of 
Elisha B. Strong, Elisha Beach, Heman Norton and Francis Al- 

* The father of "Caleb Lyon, of Lyonsdale," the newly elected Senator from Lew- 
is and Jeti'erson. After selling here, the old gentleman purchased a large tract of laud 
in the Black river country, and became a patroou of settlement there. 



608 PHELPS AKD GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 

bright. It was completed in Feb. 1819; the architects were Brain- 
ard and Chapman. Considering the period of the enterprise, it 
was one of great magnitude, and would have proved one of great 
public utility had it been permanent. "It consisted of an entire arch, 
the chord of which was 352 feet, and the versed sine 54 feet. The 
summit of the arch was 196 feet above the surface of the water. 
The entire length of the bridge was 718 feet, and the width 30 feet, be- 
sides four large elbow braces, placed at the extremity of the arch, and 
projecting 15 feet on each side of it."* The bridge stood and was 
crossed a little over one year — loaded teams with more than 1500 
weight had passed over it ; and it was traveled over with a feeling 
of security, until it gave way, when there was no weight upon it ; 
the fault in the construction having been a want of bracing to pre- 
vent the springing up of the arch. It was crossed about 18 months. 
The Ridge Road broken by the River and the deep wide gorge, the 
Bridge was designed as a connecting link. A facility for crossing 
Irondequoit Bay was a part of the plan which contemplated the 
making of the long continuous natural highway, a main eastern and 
western thoroughfare. Under the auspices of the proprietors of 
Carthage, a store house and wharf was constructed upon the River, 
and a road made leading down to them. 

The main design of the proprietors, was the forwarding of a de- 
pot tor the commerce of the Lake and the erection of mills and 
machinery, using the hydraulic power of the Lower Falls. Aside 
from the failure of the bridge there were other early untow^ard 
events : — The failure of the old and hitherto substantial firm of 
Norton & Beach, which threw the enterprise pretty much upon the 
hands of Judge Strong; an interruption of the trade with Montre- 
al ; and most of all perhaps, the sudden and rapid start of a power- 
ful rival. When the decision as to the place of crossing the River 
with the canal was pending, that locality was a competitor ; a route 
was surveyed, and the estimates of an aqueduct made. Mr. Holley, 
the acting commissioner, at one period offered to receive proposals 
for the work ; a re-estimate however of the cost of an aqueduct to 
span the deep and wide chasm, led to the abandonment of the route. f 

In addition to the improvements named, the proprietors of Carth- 
age and the Bridge, erected a public house which was opened by 
Ebenezer Spear, who has been named in connection with Palmyra 
and Penfield. He was succeeded by Justin Smith. Harvey Kim- 
ball and Oliver Strong opened mercantile establishments. Levi H. 
Clark, a lawyer settled there as early as 1818. He was the partner 



* Jesse Hawley, in Rochester Directory, 1827. 

t Those who had become interested in Rochester, were divided upon the question of 
Canal location ; a portion of them being of opinion that the diversion of water from 
mills and machinery to feed the canal, would not have its equivalent in any advanta- 
ges that would grow out of the near proximity of it to their business sites. 



609 

of Dr. Ward, in the purchase of the residuary land interest of the 
State of Connecticut. Returning to the east after a residence 
there of a few years, he was at one period a reporter at Washing- 
ton; died a few years since in New York. John W. Strong was a 
resident of Carthage, as early as 1818; was an early prominent 
merchant in Rochester ; removed to Detroit in 1830 ; is now a clerk 
of the Commissioner of the Land Office. Oliver Strong was con- 
nected in the mercantile and milling business with Judge Strong 
until 1832, in which year he died at Detroit. He was at one period 
the Major General of a Rifle Brigade. Horace Hooker was early 
at Carthage, engaged in mercantile and distilling business. He 
still resides there. Francis Babcock built a flouring mill at the 
Lower Falls as early as 1824 ; built the dwelling now occupied by 
Ansel Frost ; leaving here, he engaged in mercantile pursuits ; was 
captured and killed by pirates on the coast of Africa. Capt. Cru- 
ger, of the U. S. Army, was early at Carthage ; now resides in the 
city of New York. 

Heman Norton was the son of Nathaniel Norton, the early Pio- 
neer of Bloomfield, and merchant of Canandaigua ; married a sis- 
ter of Judge Strong. He removed to the city of New York, where 
he died several years since. His sons are, Professor Wm. P. Nor- 
ton, John Norton, a Merchant in New York, A daughter became 
the wife of Walter Griffith of New York. Eilsha Beach who was 
a son-in-law of Nathaniel Norton, died in Monroe, Michigan, in 
1850. 

Elisha B. Strong has continued to reside in Carthage since his 
early advent ; witnessing and participating in its rise and decline, 
and surviving to see the village that became its successful rival, 
grow into an overshadowing city, and generously embrace it in its 
limits. That portion of the original site of Carthage remaining in 
his hands, and for many years constituting his farm, is now sefiing 
in lots of 100 feet front, at from $100 to ^500. He is now in his 
62d year. He was a member of Assembly from Ontario in 1819 
and '20. In 1821, when the application was made for the erection 
of Monroe, from parts of Ontario and Genesee, he was in attend- 
ance at Albany, and contributed essentially in thwarting a strong 
opposition, and bringing the measure to a consummation. He was 
appointed First Judge on the organization of the courts of Monroe, 
holding the office until succeeded by Judge Samson. 

Capt. John T. Trowbridge, now residing in Racine, Wisconsin, 
long known in connection with the commerce of Lake Ontario, re- 
sided at Carthage as early as 1820. 

All of what is now Irondequoit was slow in settling. The lands, 
especially between Ridge and Lake, being mostly pine plains, the 
soil light and sandy — " barrens," they used to be called. But a 
change has come over them^ such as has been noticed in other lo- 
calities. Their present value is from $50 to $100 per acre. 



610 PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 

The early proprietors of that portion of the city on the east side 
of the River, between the Andrews and Atwater tract, and the 
Carthage tract, were John W. Strong, who after making a farm and 
residing there, sold his possessions to Martin Galusha, under whose 
auspices it has been platted and sold ; Caleb Lvon, who owned 32 
acres, and sold it to Elon Huntington. The whole space, the Carth- 
age plat included, aflbrds some of the most eligible building grounds 
within the city, overlooking the River and its romantic scenery, and 
the lower part of the city "on the east side of the River. It "is fast 
filling up. 



Ashbel W. Riley emigrated from Wethersfield, Conn., in 1816; 
was in early years extensively engaged in the lumber trade ; in 
1835 was one of the principal founders of a six day transportation 
line upon the Erie Canal, and at the same time was'the joint propri- 
etor with Josiah Bissell in real estate operations, which have been 
named. The last ten years of his life has been principally devoted 
to the temperance reformation, in which cause he is a widely known 
and popular public lecturer. His military title is derived from the 
holding of the commission of Major General of the 3d division of 
Riflemen. 

Gideon Cobb was a young adventurer to the Genesee country 
from Vermont, just previous to the war of 1812; a travelling ped- 
lar of scythes and axes; temporarily making some improvements 
on a tract of wild land among the hemlocks of the western portion 
of Wyoming county ; serving a brief season upon the frontier ; 
then a travelling dealer in hollow ware; until 1814, when he went 
into the employ of the Messrs. Browns, at Frankfort. He estab- 
lished the first "public conveyance," in Monroe county: — a four 
ox team which went twice a week from Rochester to the mouth of 
the River, principally to do the transportation for the primitive mer- 
chants of Rochester. He used to get his beans and pork "cooked 
by Mrs. Culver except in warm weather, when his beans would 
get sour," and he "had his cooking done twice a w^eek." He 
finally got board with Willis Kempshall, but had "to sleep under 
the work bench." He cleared the timber from North and Monroe 
streets. And all these were but a part of his early industry and 
enterprise. He is now 61 years of age, "hale and hearty," the 
owner and occupant of one of the largest farms in Brighton ; and 
as if he knew not how to suspend labor and enterprise, is building 
for the county of Monroe, the splendid edifice for its courts and 
public offices, at a cost to county and city, of $60,000. 

William Cobb, a brother of "Gideon, had been connected with 
Dr. MatthewBrown in the axe and scythe manufactory, near Rome. 
In 1816, the business was transferred to. Rochester, and commenced 
upon the site now occupied by Lewis Seely"s buildings ; a machine 



PHELPS AKD GORHAM's PURCHASE. 611 

shop was added. In 1820, in partnership with Lawson Thayer, he 
purchased the site now occupied by D. R. Barton, to which the 
business of scythe manufacturing was transferred. The rear of the 
lot was occupied by Thomas Morgan, with the first manufactory of 
the cut nail started west of the Hudson. Mr. (^obb left Roches- 
ter previous to 1830, under an engagement with the late Nathaniel 
Allen, of Allen's Hill, to take charge of a tool shop connected with 
the contract for constructing the canal around the Falls of the Ohio 
at Louisville. The employer and the employed — two valued cit- 
izens of western New York — both died at Louisville. Three daugh- 
ters reside in Michigan, one in Buflalo, and one, (Mrs. Wm. J. 
Hanford,) in Rochester. 

Dr. John Cobb, of Ogden, who was a brother of Gideon and 
William, was a settled physician in Ogden, as early as 1810. 

Chauncey Dean was an early citizen of Rochester — was a broth- 
er of L. Q. C. Dean, of the present wife of David Thomas, of 
Aurora ; was of one branch of the Pioneer family of the name in 
Phelps. He was the founder of mills on Black creek, in Chili. He 
died soon after 1825. His wife, who was the sister of Austin 
Wing, of Michigan, is a resident with her sons at Monroe. 

The following, as near as the author has been able to ascertain, 
were the pioneer mechanics, other than those already recognized: — 

Erastus Cook, established silver smithing and watch repairing in 
1815; still survives, and continues the business. Salmon Scofield, 
soon after him; died in early years. In 1816, Jonathan Packard; 
still survives, and continues business. In 1817, Samuel W. Lee; 
still survives, carrying on chiefly the manufacture of silver ware. 

Ebenezer Watts started copper, tin and sheet iron business, in 
3817, to which was added in process of time, an extensive hardware 
establishment. He still survives, retired from business. He is the 
father of John H. Watts, broker, of Rochester. Frazer & Shel- 
don, were early in the same business. Mr. Frazer removed to Al- 
bany. Josiah Sheldon died in 1849 ; Benjamin Sheldon, of Roch- 
ester is a son of his. 

Preston Smith had established a small cabinet shop previous to 
1816; he still survives. In that year, William Brewster commen- 
ced the business. In 1819 Frederick. Starr. Both survive, and 
are at the head of establishments, that in magnitude, and work- 
manship, vie with the best establishments of the kind in the older 
cities of the Union. 

Isaac and Aldridge Colvin were first to start the manufacture of 
hats ; they still survive, are farmers in Henrietta. John and Will- 
iam Haywood followed them ; John Haywood still survives and 
continues the business. Next to Mr. Reynolds, Pelatiah West, a 
brother of Ira West, started the business of a saddler and harness 
maker. He removedto Palmyra, where he died 8 or 10 years since. 
John Shethar was early in the same business ; died at Seneca Falls. 



612 PHELPS AOT) GOEHAMS' PURCHASE. 

John H. Thompson, started the manufacture of looking glasses, as 
early as 1821, '2 ; still survives and continues the business. 

After Jehiel Barnard, the principal early tailors were Smith & 
Holden. In fact theirs was the first considerable establishment. 

_ Jacob How started a bakery as early as 1815, continued it until 
his death; was succeeded by his son, Jacob How, who still contin- 
ues the business. 

Jacob Graves and Samuel Works, emigrated from Vermont in 
1816, purchased a small tannery that had been started by Kellog 
Vosburgh. In the hands of Messrs. Graves & Works, and in later 
years, in the hands of Mr. Graves, the business has been one of 
great magnitude. It is now carried on by Jacob Graves & Sons. 
Mr. Works is a resident of Lockport ; was an early and efficient 
helper in advancing the prosperity of Rochester ; has in later years 
filled the offices of a State Senator, and Canal Superintendent. 

The early master builders were, Daniel Mack, Phelps Smith, 
Robert and Jonathan King, the last two of whom survive and are 
residents of Rochester. Philip Allen was an early builder; was the 
father of Asa K., and of the early forwarder upon the Erie Canal, 
Pliny Allen. The Allen family, some years since emigrated to Wis- 
consin, to a locality now called "Allen's Grove," where the old 
patriarch, surrounded by over an 100 descendants, died in 1845, 
aged 88 years. He was the father of Mrs. Samuel W. Lee, of 
Rochester. 

Charles Magney was the pioneer cooper ; Eggleston was 

early in that branch of business. Mrs. Jewell, of Rochester, is a 
daughter of Charles Magney ; a street of the city takes its name 
from him. 

Although he was preceded by others, in a small way, in the boot 
and shoe business, Abner Wakelee was the first to establish a shoe 
store. He is now a farmer in Brighton. Jacob Gould was early in 
that branch of business ; commencing when Rochester was a small 
village, his establishment, in his hands and those of George Gould 
& Co., has kept up in the march of progress. The early mechanic, 
Jacob Gould, has been a prominent citizen of Rochester, and an 
efficient helper in its prosperity. He has held the military rank of 
a Major General, has been Mayor of the city ; in later years, Mar- 
shall of the Northern District of N. Y. He is now President of 
the Farmer's and Mechanic's Bank. Thomas and Jesse Congdon, 
were early shoe dealers. 

Brown, established the earliest regular machine shop ; was 

the first to set up the engine lathe in Rochester. Thomas Morgan, 
who is named as the founder of a nail factory, was an ingenious and 
enterprising mechanic, worthy of being the predecessor of the host 
of enterprising men who have made Rochester almost a city of me- 
chanics and manufacturers. His wife and family still resides in 
Rochester. 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM'S PUECHASE. 613 

The early lawyers of Rochester, were John Mastick, who was 
the first in the county. He studied law with George Hosmer, of 
Avon ; was admitted to practice and settled at the mouth of the 
river, previous to 1811; removed to Rochester during the war, 
opening an office in a small wooden building near the site of Gould's 
shoe store. He died childless, in 1828 or '9. 

Enos Pomeroy was a native of Massachusetts ; studied law in the 
office of Gen. Kirkland, was admitted to practice in 1815, and in 
the same year opened an office in Rochester. He still survives, 
residing upon a farm in Brighton, at the age of GO years. He is 
succeeded in practice by his son, John N. Pomeroy ; another son 
was recently in Engineer corps on the Genesee Valley canal. 

Joseph Spencer was from Hartford, Conn., a son of Isaac Spen- 
cer, the Treasurer of the State at one period ; graduated at Yale 
College ; commenced practice in Rochester in 1816. He was at 
one period in the Senate of this State. Possessed of fine talents, 
with the promise of professional success and eminence, he had but a 
short career; dying previous to 1830. His wife was the sister of 
Samuel L. and Henry R. Selden. She is now the wife of Capt. Eaton 
of the U. S. Army, a son of Professor Eaton. 

Roswell Babbit was from Lewis county ; studied law in Lowville ; 
died at Saratoga Springs soon after 1830. Charles R. Babbit, of 
Rochester is his son. 

Hastings R. Bender, was from Vermont ; a graduate of Dart- 
mouth ; he left practice 15 or 20 years since, and went upon a farm 
in Parma, where he now resides. 

Anson House was an early Attorney and Justice of the Peace, 
but engaged in business enterprises, has been but little known in his 
profession. He was the founder, and is still the owner of the Mi- 
nerva block. 

Moses Chapin, was a graduate of Yale in 1811 ; studied his pro- 
fession in Albany with Jones & Baldwin; in 1816 commenced the 
practice of his profession in Rochester ; was the Frst Judge of Mon- 
roe, from 1825 to 1830. He still survives in the practice of his 
profession. 

Ashley Samson was a native of Addison county, Vt., a graduate 
of Middlebury ; studied his profession in part with Col. Samuel 

WoTE. — Mr. Pomeroy remarks that the project of a ne^v county was started as early 
as 1818 ; himself, Col. Rochester, Judge Strong, ■vrere at Albany at the same, and at 
different periods, to promote it. The opposition to the measure at Canandaigua, Batavia, 
aud all along the old Buffalo road, was formidable, andretai-ded theconsummationj 
Crowded calendars at the courts of the old counties of Ontario and Genesee helped the 
matter much. This was the result of the financial revulsion that commenced in 1817. 
John C. Spencer, of Canandaigua, and P. L. Tracy, of Buffalo, commenced each an 
hundred suits in one year in court of common pleas. In both counties protracted 
sessions of the court had to be held. Judge Howell of Ontario would sometimes open 
his courts h tore day light, A specimen of his dispatch of business : — " Mi-. Uixon, 
do you expect to pfnye any thing more in this case V ''Well Sir, I can hardly tell 
how that will be." " Clerk, enter a noh-buit!" 



614 - PHELPS AND GOKHAm's PUKCHASE. 

Young at Ballston ; commenced practice as a partner of Simon 
Stone 2d., m Pittsford m 1817; in 1819 removedto Rochester In 

823 he was appomted F.rst Judge of Monroe county ; re'^ ed 
182o, was re-apponited m 1838, and held the office until 1843 
He was an early Justice of the Peace in Brighton; and was a re: 
presentative m the Legislature from Monroe, in 844 He s m 
survives, mamly retired from the profession on account of phvsica 
nifirmity, but with mental laculties unimpaired, enioyinlle eso^^^^^^ 
and esteem of his fellow citizens. "^ "^ ^ ^ 

The courts of Monroe were organized in 1821 ; the first term 
held m that year at the "house of A?el Ensworth." Thme were then 
added to the bar of Rochester, and soon after: -WmW^W 
ford Melancton Brown, Wm. Graves, Daniel D. Barn ^"d, Timothy 
Char es rIT ^^^'1'^""' ^k'"^^^^^* ^^'■^«^"' ^m. B. Roch s e , 



VINCENT MATTHEWS. 



Though not a resident of Monroe county early enough to be termed a 
Pioneer, he bore that relation to all the western )ortion°of this Statrand 
as early as 181 , was a resident upon Phelps Ind (^orham^s Purchase 
He was the first lawyer located in practice west of Utica; at the per odof 
his death had been fifty s... years in practice. In reference to age. is e. 
tended years of residence, and professionallife, he was a Father of the 
Bar of Western New York; and he was well entitled to that Itin t on 
by his dignified professional examples, and the deference that was Iwara 
ed to his legal opinions and personal character, by his cotempora ies 
. He was ot Irish descent; a paternal ancestor was an officer in the Brit- 
harm v stationed at Albany, when the Dutch surrendered N w Yoif to 
he English. His grand tather emigrated to America in 1702. becomin' 

backT'N^' K '■'"=' n^"'^' rf'''^ "P^" ^ ''■''' i" the then vildern s' 
back of Newburg, which took the name of " Matthew's Field " 

■ ;k! /"''J"'^ °^ t^>> «>^tch was the son of James Matthews- was born 
m 1 . 06 ; was one oi a family of six sons and six daughters. Il b^t one of 
whom lived adult age and became heads of families. In 78 he left 
hispatenia home and became a student in an Academy at NewburV o 
which Noah Webster the afterwards renowned lexicographer wa^'the 
JZTl' P^' ''"' f ftf ^vards a student in an Academy a\ Hackensack 
of which Professor Wilson ^vas Principal. In 1786 he entered the law 
office of Col. Robert Troup in New York, and after fouryears of study in 
1-90, was a^dmi ted to practice in the Supreme Court. The fame he 'ac- 
quired in after life as a sound and thoroighly educated lawyer may in a 

fhe'lrtTfiaThetr'^^'V^ %^°"§- ^"^ ^^^'^^'^ — of'study.Ynd t^ 
lame en inoP^ in n. ' "^^"^'^^^.^^ f '^'^^'y «f students (most of whom be- 
came eminent in their profession,) mstituted for practice. Courts were 



PHELPS Al^D GOEHAM's PURCHASE. 615 

eicte C H.rkimer. A friend of his who had emigrated to the new 
r S, and located at .vhat is now Elmira, importuned h.mo jom htrn 

Obtanino- board wiUi a new^ettler three miles down the River from the 
?oun s"te-a a place then called Tioga, he opened an oftce; thus becommg 
Z Pioneer in his profession, in all the region west of Utica_if ndeed 
lerewas any there as early as 1791. His practice soon extended to On- 
tar^county/ He was presint at the opening of the farst court m Canan- 

"^TlVoG '4, he was the representative of Tioga in the Legislature. In 
'96 he was a Senator from the Western District. Before the expiration of 
his term of service, he was appointed one of a board of commissioners to 
ie'le questions of disputed knd titles uponthe Military Tract, some ac- 
f ^nf which has been found in a nreceding chapter. He was elected 
to C noL in 1 9 From 1812 to isiT was^District Attorney of Tioga. 
'° LiS:teen twentieths of all the early a^lventurers in the we^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

f *!.;= qntP he had commenced poor; in debt tor the Horse ne loae, 
lion of this State he had com -j^^^^^j^ ^,,t ,t the end of twenty 

TeLlLrdronb gained Pessonal en.inence, but had accumulated 
what was hen re.-arde'd as a large estate; a portion of which was a valua- 
birtrrctof land,°which embraces a part of the site of Elmira. At an un- 
fo t mate pe nod he embarked in the mercantile basiness,_which venture 
tortunate pe OQ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^.^ property. 

^T 18 Th chk" d hs residence to Bath, Steuben county, and formed 

. 1 ;rwi h the late Wm. B. Rochester, in the practice of law. n 

IsTlttnord'to Rochester, where he pj-acticed until ajew months 

' , ;, ,i,„,i(, which occurred on lhe-23d of September, 1840. 
■'Te ;«^sS*i t A« ney or Monroe, for several years; in 18-26 one of 
its" p e n° ; s h, the legislature. His military r-ank of a Brrga ter 
pr;Lattai,,edthu,,^^^^^^^^e^.^.^ 

^::7Z!/n:Zno:::^^^i theearly pe,iod when the beat of 
Us Bri cadf was all of the territory lying west of a line north and south al- 

"'^fe's^nLr'^atiude'I-pi-oducedinthe city of Roche.ter- 
I^dllm ei^tt finriem," was his Laconic answer and reproof. 



616 PHELPS Al^D GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 

the demonstrations that followed its announcement — are already recorded 
witnesses of the esteem and respect entertained for him by his immediate 
neighbors; — and in fact throughout the wide region with which he had 
been so long and intimately blended, there was heartfelt sorrow; a feeling 
that an eminently exemplary and useful life had terminated. A monu- 
ment erected in that well ordered and beautiful city of the dead — Mount 
Hope — erected with the spontaneous ofl'erings of all classes of his fellow 
citizens; his venerable features preserved upon canvass, and hung up in 
the court room; are additional evidences of the manner in which his mem- 
ory is cherished. 

The remarks made by his friend and professional cotemporary. Judge 
Samson, at the meeting of the Bar immediately following the announce- 
ment of his death, deserves a more enduring record than that affored by 
newspaper files : — 

" Mr. Chairman : — The event we are met to consider and take action 
upon, has not come upon us suddenly, or by surprise, and may be thought, 
therefore, to lack some of the impressive solemnity which attends an un- 
expected and atilicting dispensation. Death has been in our midst and 
taken away a most dear and esteemed friend. It has been said that the 
deceased was fifty six years in practice. I am regarded by associates as an 
old man, and certainly my feelings go strongly in corroboration of this 
opinion; and yet, Mr. Chairman, I was born the year our venerable broth- 
er was admitted to the Bar. 

" In his death crowned as it was with years and honors, he resembled 
an ancient oak falling mighty and majestic to the earth, after braving the 
storms of uncounted winters. He contended long with disease, but the 
last enemy, death, prevailed, and he bowed his venerable head and died. 
His pure and useful life afiords an impressive lesson to the profession. 
He confined himself mainly though not exclusively to the single object of 
professional pursuits. Sometimes indeed he listened to the call of his 
countrymen, and entered public life, but he always returned with alacri- 
ty to his professional labors. 

" One feature in his character I desire particularly to notice. He was a 
Christian. Though much occupied by his ordinary pursuits, he did not 
neglect the higher interest of his soul. Even before he made a pubhc 
profession, he was known often to leave his bed, not to prepare his briefs, 
but to peruse the oracles of eternal truth. In process of time he publicly 
acknowledged the Lord Jesus, and connected himself with the Episcopal 
church, to which his preferences inclined. He was no technical theologian, 
or mere sectarian. 

In a conversation I had with him a few days since, his eye lighted with 
unusual brilliancy when I adverted to the glorious hopes of the gospel, 
and he expressed his undoubting trust in the cross of Christ. To a friend 
who cabled upon him when near his end, he declared that he relied solely 
upon the merits of Jesus Christ. 

" In conclusion, I cannot conceal from my brethren of the Bar, my solici- 
tude that we may one and all imitate his example, and that this bereavement 
may be sanctified to us all." 

Mrs. Mathews died at her residence in Rochester, in December 1850. 



PHELPS AISTD GOEHAM's PUECHASE. 617 

An onl^r son, James E. Matthews, resides near the Lake shore in Somerset, 
Niagara count)% where he was an early merchant, and has been for many- 
years, an exemplary and useful citizen. The surviving daughters are Mrs. 
Albert H. Porter, of Niagara Falls, Mrs. William Everett, and an unmar- 
ried daughter, residing in Rochester. Sela Matthews Esq., of Rochester, 
a nephew, an early ward and student of Gen. Matthews, is his business 
successor. 



Frederick F. Backus, M. D., is a native of Richfield county, Conn.; 
a graduate of Yale College ; studied his profession in New Haven 
and Philadelphia. He settled in Rochester in 1816, where he has 
continued in practice until the present time. In addition to local 
offices he has held, he has been a member of the State Senate. He 
is one of the " fathers of the city," conspicuously identified with it 
in most of all its history. 

John B. Elwood, M. D., studied his profession principally witli 
Dr. Joseph White, of Cherry Valley ; practiced a short time in 
Richfield; in January 1817 located in Rochester. There was in 
practice in Rochester, beside Dr. Backus, Dr. O. E. Gibbs, Dr. 
Wilkenson, Dr. Dyer Ensworth, Dr. Jonah Brown ; and Dr. Mat- 
thew Brown, and the elder Dr. Ensworth, practiced occasionly, as 
exigency required. Dr. Gibbs died four or five years since. Dr. 
Anson Coleman was the first settled physician after Dr. Elwood, as 
early as 1817. He died 15 or 16 years since. 

Dr. Elwood still survives, having been in practice in Rochester, 
nearly thirty six years ; — years of usefulness, and something of em- 
inence in his profession ; while in other respects he has maintained 
a prominent and influential position. Infirm health, a few years 
since induced him to make a winter's residence in Florida, where 
he met with a serious accident, with which the public were made 
familiar at the time ; from which he has mostly recovered. 

Comfort Williams was the first settled clergyman in Rochester. 
His charge being that of the First Presbyterian church, which was 
the first organized religious society of Rochester, in the early year 
1814. He was a graduate of Yale. Ministering to but few, and 
most of those but illy able to contribute to his support, he labored 
dilligently " with his own hands." Purchasing 40 acres of land, in 
the then woods, on what is now Mount Hope Avenue, he was the 
first after Messrs. Carter and Scrantom, to make improvements in 
that portion of the city. He died in early years. His surviving 
sons are, Alfred M. VVilliams, Charles H. Williams, of Rochester, 
and Edward B. Williams, in Texas. Mrs. Oatman, of Wisconsin, 
is a daughter. The tract of land he purchased has remained in the 
hands of the family, and has been mostly sold out in city lots, under 
the auspices of Charles H. Williams. 

The Carter tract in the same neighborhood, mostly went into the 
39 



618 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUECHASE. ^ 

hands of Lyman Munger, under whose auspices much of the im- 
provements along on Mount Hope Avenue have been made. That 
locahty, where the reader will have seen Mr. Scrantom placed his 
family that they might not be found in the event of British invasion ; 
a dark and gloomy forest, as many will recollect who used to ap- 
proach the falls and the mouth of the river, via. the Henrietta road, 
is becoming the especial pride of the city. There are there, Mount 
Hope, a resting place for the dead, scarcely inferior to any enter- 
prise of the kind in the older cities of the Union ; and to say noth- 
ing of other attractions, beautiful private residences, &;c., there are 
the extensive grounds of those tasteful, practical, and enterprising 
nurserymen, horticulturalists, and florists, Messrs. Ellwanger and 
Barry. 

Augustine G. Dauby, who had served his apprenticeship with Ira 
Merrill of Utica, first introduced the printing press into the county 
of Monroe. He established the Rochester Gazette in 1816. John 
Sheldon and Oran Follett were .early associated with him. Mr. 
Dauby returned to Utica, was for a long period the editor and pub- 
lisher of the Utica Observer, and P. M. of Utica. He still resides 
at Utica, retired from business. John Sheldon has since published 
a paper at Detroit, in Wisconsin, has held a government office, been 
a reporter at Washington ; still resides at the west. A daughter 
of his is the wife of Dr. Nott. Mr. Follett, who, with his family, 
are noticed in another connection, resides at Sandusky. In 1818, 
Everard Peck, & Co., — who had established in 1816 the pioneer 
bookstore in Rochester — established the Rochester Telegraph. Mr. 
Peck si ill survives, enjoying a competence of wealth, and the es- 
teem of his fellow-citizens. He is now the President of the Com- 
mercial Bank. The mechanical department of the paper was con- 
ducted by the two brothers, Derick and Levi W. Sibley. In 1824 
Thurlow Weed became its editor; in 1827, associated with Robert 
Martin, he purchased the establishment, and the two issued it semi- 
weekly until 1828, when it was published daily by Mr. Martin. The 
Sibleys were the successors of Dauby & Sheldon. Levi W. 
Sibley died in Rochester in 1844; Derick Sibley resides in Cincin- 
natti. Edwin Scrantom, who is named in another connection, was 
the first apprentice to the printing business in Rochester. In 1826 
Luther Tucker who had served a portion of his apprenticeship in 
the first office established at Palmyra, issued the Rochester Daily 
Advertiser, the first daily in Rochester, and the first west of the 
Hirdson river. Henry O. Rielh^ became its editor. In 1829 the 
T.wo daily papers were united, and a paper published by Tucker & 
Martin, called the Rochester Daily Advertiser and Telegraph. 
Luther Tucker is the widely known and highly esteemed proprietor 
and editor of the Albany Cultivator. Jessee Peck, David Hoyt, S. 
D. Porter, Thomas W. "Flagg, Elihu F. Marshall, D. D. Stevensoii, 
Daniel N. Sprague, Erastus Shepard, E. J. Roberts, Elisha Loomis, 



PHELPS AND GOEHAM's PURCnASE. 619 

Albert G. Hall, Peter Cherry, John Denio, Alvah Strong, Nahum 
Goodsell, Franklin Cowdery, Sidney Smith, George Dawson, Samutl 
Heron, George Smith, Thomas Barnum — are names blended with 
the history of printing and newspapers in Rochester. 

And here the author must leave the Press of Rochester, as all else 
must be left, in this history of the beginning of things ; — with 
something more than usual reluctance — for it is of his own craft ; 
and no where is the whole history of its progress marked with greater 
enterprise, or more creditable to the " Art preservative of all Arts." 

Roswell Hart, was of the large family of that name, in Clinton, 
Oneida county. He commenced mercantile business in Rochester 
as early as 1816 ; died in 1824, aged 37 years. His surviving sons ,. 
are, Thomas P. Hart and Roswell Hart, of Rochester, and Geo. W. 
Hart, of N. Y. Daughters became the wives of the Rev. Francis 
H. Cuming, now of Grand Rapids, Michigan ; Henry E. Rochester, 
and M. F. Reynolds, of Rochester. Thomas Hart, a brother of 
Roswell Hart settled in Rochester in 1820 ; still survives. Seth 
Saxton was the early clerk of Roswell Hart, subsequently his partner 
and that of his brother Thomas Hart. His widow still survives, 
and three daughters, one of whom has recently become the wife 
of Major Sibley,. of the U.S. Army, now stationed in Santa Fee. 

Charles J. Hill was in Rochester as early as 1816; he still sur- 
vives ; one of the many enterprising millers of the " city of mills." 
He erected in 1821, in company with Mr. Leavitt, and occupied 
himself, the first brick building in Rochester, on Fitzhugh street, the 
present residence of Wm. Ailing. Mr. Hill observes : In point of 
health, the settlers immediately upon the site of Rochester, suffered 
less than would be supposed, as it was literally, most of it, a swamp 
without drainage ; still they were no strangers to sickness and suf- 
fering, and occasionally from fevei's of a very malignant type. 

Solomon Close, who it will be observed, was one of the signers of 
the handbill — " Canal in danger" — was a deputy sheriff of Genesee ; 
resided in early years in Greece ; and was also an early resident in 
Rochester. He removed to Michigan in early years. 

John Odell was a merchant in Rochester as early as 1819 ; had a. 
small store on site now occupied by the Talman block; emigrated 
to Michigan in early years. 

Harvey Montgomery, who was an early merchant in Rochester, 
the partner of John C. Rochester, still survives. He is the father 
of Thomas Montgomery, an Attorney, and Dr. Harvey Montgomery 
of Rochester. 

Eli Stilson, was from Fairfield, Conn., emigrated to Cayuga coun- 
ty as early as 1800. He was an early surveyor in Cayuga, a school 
teacher, and had much to do in the early organization of schools in 
Scipio and its neighborhood. He removed to the town of Brighton 
in 1817; in 1829 became a resident of what is now Rochester, on 
the east side of the river; was a surveyor of a large portion of the 



620 \ PHELPS AM) GOEHAJi's PURCHASE. 

city east of the River, of lots and streets ; was at. one period the 
agent of Bissell & Riley, in the prosecution of their enterprise up- 
on the tract purchased of Enos Stone. He still survives at the 
age of 78 years. His surviving sons are, David Stilson, and Eli L. 
G. Stilson, an Attorney of Battle Creek, Michigan, Jerome B. Stil- 
son, division engineer upon the Erie Canal, George D. Stilson, a 
contractor on the Erie Rail Road. Daughters became the wives of 
Dr. Caleb Hammond, and Gen. A. W. Riley, of Rochester, Ros- 
well Hart, of Brighton ; another the second wife of Gen. Riley, and 
another the second wife of Roswell Hart. 

William Atkinson was early on the east side of the River, the 
founder of the mills now carried on by Charles J. Hill. Hobart 
Atkinson, of Rochester, is a son of his ; the widow is now the wife 
of the Rev. Chas. G. Finney. William Nefus came in as the mil- 
ler of Mr. Atkinson ; his widow still survives ; his daughter is the 
wife of Nelson Curtis. Mr. Nefus was an early tavern keeper on 
the east side of the River. 

In 1817, there was residing on present city limits, on the Brighton 
side, other than those already named, Aaron Newton, Moses Hall, 
Ebenezer Titus. In that portion of the now city there was not 
twenty acres of cleared ground. There was little else than prim- 
itive wood's roads in any direction. Along where St. Paul street 
now is there was a dense forest of evergreens, hemlock, spruce 
and cedar. 

The brothers, M'Crackens, were as early as 1805 or '6, Pioneers 
in the neighborhood of Batavia. They removed to Rochester 
soon after the war. Dr. David M'Cracken was a prominent citzen 
of the old county of Genesee. A tract of land he purchased near 
Deep Hollow, on the River, is now embraced in the city. He died 
at an advanced age five or six years since, childless. Wm. J. Mc- 
Cracken, was an early tavern keeper in Frankfort, still survives, a 
resident with his son-in-law, Henry Blanchard. A daughter of 
Gardner M'Cracken, is the widow of " Capt. Scott," the afterwards 
Col. Scott, of the U. S. Army, who was killed in the Mexican war. 

Other early landlords in Rochester, who have not been named, 

Charles Millerd, Henry Draper, Elliott. The daughters of 

Dr. Ensworth who has been named in another connection, became 
the wives of John Shethar, Benjamin Campbell, and Rufus Meech. 
George Ensworth, an only surviving son, resides in New York. 

Warham Whitney was from Northam{)ton, Mass. ; removed to 
Rochester in 1820; was one of the early enterprising millers; a 
flourishing portion of the city on the west side of the River, south 
of what was Frankfort, has grown up on his farm. He died in 
1841. His surviving sons are, George L. Whitney and James 
Whitney, of Rochester. Daughters became the wives of John 
Williams and Samuel G. Andrews. John Whitney, a brother of 
Warham, preceded him in Rochester ; has in later years been a res- 



PHELPS ASD GOEHAm's POTCHASE. G21 

ident of Ovleans county, and Ohio; is »gain acitizen oj Rochefr^ 

Ralph Parker was a native of ^ah^buy 1.01 . ^ ^^^ 

Terlnont.hewasforfour.ee.^con.ec«^^ 

State Legislature. In 1810 >« em^ ^^ ^^^^ ^f ,1^^ 

still resides at the ='dv™eed^-; J8,>«„7Mo„roe His 

Judges of Genesee before the erection ^^^^^^ p ^^^ 

surviving sons are Daniel P. ^'^ '^ ■ °' i^Xr Beaver Dam, Wis- 
Ralph A° Parte;,^ R^^'«^:'j4 -Hlodt^^^^^^ and Mrs. Richard 
IT^s^fU^'^tra^Ms-f-'Sh^ 

, . r ^ t^-Rnrhester has been incidental to the 
So much in reference ^o Kocliestei na important 

Pioneer History of tlie vyhole ^-^S^X of the work had anticipated 
a relation. It is hoped that no ^^^f^.^, ^J^^^^i^J^s^^n ; and it woidd 
a history of Rochester; «!^^f ^.^^^X^^of ^^^^^^^^^^^ A wide region 
have been incompatible with the plan ^ th^^^^^^ ^^^^, embraced ; 
of primitive settlements, of ^owns and -^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^. 

a lo'ng series of ^-^^/^IJ^J^lf ,tton t^another, has been an imper- 

step by step, ^^^on.e.j.^^^^^^^ to a popu- 

traced the progress ot ^^^^'^^f/®' " ^p,,„,i^e and prosperity, creating 
lous CITY ;-a scene of ^^ealth ento.pnse ana p ^ J -^^ ^^^ 
wonder and admiration, even m an especial eia o 

progress. ^ „ . i • u +Vip vpader has been intro- 

^ f he " Falls of the Genesee, to ^;^;,^^^^^^^ wilderness - 

duced when it was a lonely and ^^eduded spo m t 
visited but by an occasional to^^/j^^-Xof^^^^ race, -the local- 
years, the abode oi but one f ^^^y ^^^J^^ ?^r Tears after there had 
(ty that remained a dense, ^^.b;;;^^f,[/^^\'^ ^;, en^^^ and improvements ; 
been a near approach ^^ i^°^^^'^ ^; t^^'f^^H^'sAND, and even that is 
has now a population of neady .^^^^J^^^' the triumphs it has 
but an imperfect indica ion of its FO^Perii}. ^^^ 

achieved ! The " Hundred Acres ^he gemr « « ^^^^^ ^^^^ 

has had added to it, first, ^^her flf s o sepaia ^^ ^^J ^^^^ ^^^^_ 
after farm, in succession, until it has expan business 

SA.B ACKES, nearly all ^^.^ ^^h^^^J^XTdweTl higs. The lots that 
establishments, public edifices and P ivate dvv k^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^_ 

the venerated Patroon, Col. Rochester i 1« ^^^^ ^^ ^^.^^ ^30 

ticipations, and liberal views, ^^^^tiucted 1^. ag ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ 

to $200, are now worth ^^."^^f^^^^V,^^^^^^^ from$?,000 

rents derived from the buildings upon some ^^ commerce m 

to 12,000 Of the ^^taple arucle o^ome t ^^^^^^^^ ^^^,^ ^^^^ ^^ 

most of the civilized world, Kocnesiei 



622 PHELPS AND GOEHAM'S PUECHASE. 

manufactured in any other locality. Its mills are capable of manu- 
facturing the flour consumed by the entire population of the state of 
New- York ; and this is but a part of its manufaeturina; enterprises. 

In other respects it is pre-eminent. There is no other city in this 
prosperous Union, where so large a proportion of the population are 
house-holders ; none where active employment, industry, so gener- 
ally prevails. In it the idler is out of his element ; the " man of 
leisure" feels as if he was not at home. While at the same time 
it may be added, that no where are the institutions of religion, edu- 
cation, moral and intellectual improvement, better provided for by 
an equal amount of population. " As the twig is bent the tree is 
inclined," is as applicable to the growth of communities as to phys- 
ical and moral youth and age : — The impress of the Pioneers of 
Rochester in all this, is as indellible as would have been a record 
chiseled upon its palisades of rock ! 

And what of the future ? There are no clouds in its horizon -- 
no breakers in its path of progress. Never in any period of its his- 
tory has there been less to create doubt, or justify croaking auguries 
and misgivings ; never a period of so much promise of rapid advance 
and continued prosperity. To a fortunate locality — a combination 
of advantages seldom excelled, the enterprise of its citizens has ad- 
ded, and is adding, w'hat else was and is requisite. 

Lake and canal commerce tend to it almost with a seeming favor- 
itism ; Railroads connect and are connecting it with the Atlantic 
sea board, and the long chain of Western Lakes ; a Railroad is con- 
structing which will bring it still nearer to the Great West, and 
make its connection with it far more intimate; a canal facilitates its 
intercourse with the rich valley of which it is the emporium ; plank 
roads reach out from it and invite increased intercourse with natural 
tributaries. But one enterprise more would seem to be required, 
and that can hardly fail to enlist the co-operation of her public 
spirited citizens. The march must be onward, and onward ! 

The Pioneer period, in reference to Rochester, has already been 
passed and the whole work is becoming larger than was originally 
designed. Briefness — little more than a chronology of events — 
blended with a few statistics, must suffice : — 

1817. — The village was incorporated under the name of Rochesterville — The first 
Trustees were Francis Brown, David Marsh, William Cobb, Everard Peck, and 
Jehiel Barnai'd — The first public house of worship was built — William Atkin- 
son built the yellow mill on Johnson's Race — An Episcopal church was or- 
ganized, taking the name of " St. Luke's Church, Genesee Falls," by the Rev. 
Henry U. Onderdonk, afterwards Bishop of Pennsylvania — The Rev. Francis 
H. Cuming became its first settled clergyman — A Friend's meeting, or society 
was organized — A Lodge of Master Masons was installed. 

1818. — Gilman & Sibley erected a paper mill near Atkinson's flouring mill — In Sep- 

NoTE. — For much of what is contained in these brief statistics, the author is indebt- 
ed to Elisha Ely's "Rochester Directory," for 1827, and Mr. O'Reilly's "Sketches 
of Rochester." 



PHELPS AJSTD GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 623 

tember the second census of the village was taken; population 1049 — First 
Sunday School organized — Fii'st Baptist Ghui-ch was organized, consisting of 
12 members. 
1819. — Atwater, Andrews and ilumfoi-d, built a toll bridge over the Genesee River, a 
short distance above the Falls — The name of the village was changed to Roch- 
ester — A route for the Erie Canal was surveyed through the village. 
1820. — By the U. S. sensus in August, the population was 1502 — St. Luke's Church 
was erected — First Methodist Church was organized ; the Trustees, Freder- 
ick Clark, Abelard Reynolds, Elam Smith, Dan. Rowc and Nathaniel Draper — 
A Catholic Society was organized ; meeting at the Mansion House ; Rev. John 
Farnham presided, who was called "'Pastor of the District." 
1821. — A law passed in the State Legislature erecting the county of Monroe from parts 
of Ontario and Genesee — Courts were organized in May. The Bench consist- 
ed of Ehsha B. Strong, First Judge, Timothy Barnard, Judge, Joseph Spen- 
cer Assistant justice. Enos Poraeroy, Joseph Spencer, Ashley Sampson, were 
appointed to draft rules of Court ; No issue was tried ; Court convened again 
in September — James Sevmour was Sheriff — The Aqueduct was commenced. 
1822.— Oct. 29th, the first Canal Boat left the village for Little Falls, laden with flour 
— Census, September ; population 2,700 ; including laborers on pubUc works, 
3,130. 
1823. — In this year Canal navigation was ojjened from Albany to Rochester — Oct. 
7th the Aqueduct was completed, and the event of the passage of boats over it 
celebrated by a procession of military companies. Masonic societies and citizens 
of the village. 
1825. — Census of the village in February ; population, 4,274 — Census of the village 
in August ; population, 5,273. — In tlus year Canal navigation was extended to 
Lockport. 
1826. — On the 26th day of October, the Canal was finished in its whole extent, and 
the passage of a fleet of Boats from Lake Erie to Sandy Hook, commemorated by 
succession of celebrations throughout the entire distance. There were days of 
rejoicings, public receptions, processions, cannonading, music, dancing, and 
joyous hilarity. Never upon any occasion has all this been excelled. Com- 
mencing at Biiffido, a boat having on board Gov. Clinton, and other State ofii- 
cers, committees, delegations from many counties of the State, (fee, started off 
followed by a fleet of boats. The departure was announced by a signal gun, 
and carried, along from gun to gun, stationed throughout the entire distance; in 
one hour and twenty minutes the news was received at Sandy Hook, that a boat 
had started from Lake Erie, and was on its way, "traversing a new path to the 
Atlantic Ocean." Then commenced a long series of receptions and celebrations 
along the whole line. Rochester, then a young, aspiring village of less than 
8,000 inhaMtants, as if some inspired prophet had foretold that it was the dawn- 
ing of her already largely realized destiny, caught the spirit of the whole thing ! 
In their own locality, at Buffalo, and at other places along the line ; and at the 
grand finale upon the waters of the Bay of New York, they were "present and 
assisting." When the fleet from the west anived at their village, there were 
under arms, eight uniform companies, and an immense concourse of citizens. 
Jesse Hawley made an address which was replied to by Gov. Clinton and John 
C. Spencer; exercises were had at the Presl)yterian Church — the Rev. Mr. 
Penney officiating ; Timothy Childs delivered an address ; Gen. Matthews pre- 
sided at a dinner at the Mansion House, assisted by Jesse Hawley and Jonathan 
Childs ; in tlie evening there was a ball and a general illumination. Those 
who come after us may consummate achievements of gi-eater magnitude than 
the Erie Canal, but none of more practical diffusive utdity ; and never in aU 
probability will there be another such a "people's jubilee !" 
1937. — Rochester was incorporated as a city in the s])ring of 1834. The first officers 
of the city were as follows: — Jonathan Child, Mayor; Erasmus D. Smith, 
Abraham M. Schermerhorn, Supervisors elected by general ticket ; the Alder- 
men were, Lewis Biooks, Thomas Kempshall, Frederick F. Backus, A. W. Rdey, 
Jacob Graves ; Assistants, John Jones, Elijah F. Smith, Jacob Thorn, Lansing 
B. Swan, Hemy Kennedy. Jacob Gould, A. M. Schermerhorn, Thomas Kemp- 
shaU, Elisha Johnson, were Mayors in succession. 



624 PHELPS AND GORHAIm's PURCHASE. 

CENSUS OF MOXROE COUNTY, 1850. 



NAMES OF TOWNS AND 
WARDS. 



No. of 
families 



No. of 

houses. 



RocHESTEK, 1st Ward, 
2fl 
3d 

4th " 

5th " 

6th " 

7th " 
8th 

9th " 

Total, 

Penfield, 

Webster, 

Brightou, 

Irondequoit, 

Hem ietta 

Rush 

Mendon, 

Perrinton 

Pittsford, 

Gates, 

Riga, 

Wheatland, 

Chili 

Sweeden, 

Greece 

Ogdcn, 

Parma, 

Clarkson 

Total, 



518 
655 
804 
GOT 
635 
1408 
698 
575 
926 



6826 
605 
46 
458 
441 
425 
314 
611 
508 
347 
375 
364 
501 
396 
651 
746 
495 
558 
862 



457 
522 
692 
574 
597 
1328 
631 
515 
826 



Wliite 
males. 



White 
females. 



Total of Colored I Total 
whites, popl 'n. popl 'n. 



6142 
575 
450 
429 
440 
422 
313 
611 
508 
347 
375 
364 
501 
396 
595 
705 
476 
543 
835 



1538 
1761 
2098 
1729 
1848 
3408 
1633 
1440 
2339 



17794 
1639 
1247 
1665 
1241 
1.3.55 
1082 
1752 
1514 
1061 
1053 
1135 
1534 
1197 
1785 
2179 
130 
1496 
2407 



1453 

1848 
2221 
1770 
1804 
3582 
1648 
1416 
2341 



18083 
1536 
1162 
1431 
1156 
1157 
933 
1593 
1373 
997 
951 
1024 
1380 
1050 
1804 
2022 
J29] 
1445 
2142 



15950 15027 44443 42530 87973 677 88650 



2991 
3609 
4319 
3499 
3652 
6990 
3281 
2856 
4680 



35877 
31 

2409 
3096 
239 
2512 
2015 
3345 
2887 
2058 
2004 
2159 
2914 
2247 
3589 
4201 
2598 
2941 
4549 



62 
21 
172 
12 
53 
71 
55 
64 
16 



526 
10 
37 
21 

1 

8 
4 
3 
1 



3053 
3630 
4491 
3511 
3705 
7061 
3336 
2920 
4696 

36403 
3185 
2446 
3117 
2397 
2513 
2015 
3353 
2891 
2061 
2005 
21.59 
2917 
2247 
3623 
4219 
2598 
2946 
4555 



CONTENTS OF SUPPLEMENT. 



CHAPTER I. — [Commences page 497.] — Wheatland — Riga — Reminiscences of 
Elihu Church, of Henry Brewster — Ogden — Parma — Reminiscences of Levi 
Talmadge, of Samuel Castle — Greece — Charlotte — War of 1812 — Gates — 
Penfield — Reminiscences of William Mann — Pittsford — PeiTrinton — Mendon 
— Rush — Reminiscences of Joseph Sibley — Henrietta. 

CHAPTER II. — [Com. page 543.] — Morris' Reserve — The Triangle — Le Roy — 
Names of Early Settlers on Triangle — Reminisences of Simon Picrson — Levi 
Wai'd — Bergen — Sweeden — Clarkson — Reminiscences of Dr. Baldwin and 
Gustavus Clai-k — Connecticut Tract — Names of Early Settlers — Brighton — 
Chili. 

CHAPTER III. — [Com . page 571.] —Early glimpses of tlie Genesee Valley — The 
Fallsof the Gene.seeand their immediate vicinity — General condition ofall West- 
ern New York — Pioneer History of Rochester. 



"OjnssioN. — A topographical sketch of Mumford and its neighborhood, and an 

account of recent discoveries of ancient remains near Le Roy, referred to in the body 
of the work, are necessai'ily omitted. The former wiU appear in the volume, " Living- 
Bton and Allegany." 



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